The Punisher (2006)

Reviewed Aug 8, 2007

Marvel Comics sets off to make yet another movie adaptation of a popular comic and character in this tale of revenge and justice. Thomas Jane plays our anti-hero, Frank Castle, as he sets out to exact revenge on the deaths of his family.
But really, that's what 90% of action/revenge flicks are, aren't they? Take any movie with Van Dam, Segal, Stallone, or Ah-nold, give the guy a military background, kill off his loved ones and that's this movie in a nutshell.
So what makes this action/revenge movie The Punisher? I could go on and on and explore this, but let's focus on how this matches up to the comic
And seeing as how the Punisher we all know and love really doesn't have a true cast of characters nor key villains, the focus here is all on the Punisher himself.

The Good: They cast a good actor for the role. Off hand I can't think of a better actor for the role, yet I'm sure there is someone of the Itallian-American background who looks more the part. That being said Jane works the role well, looks the part, and plays the right emotional level... for the most part.
Plus, they successfully used Punisher's extensive weapon and combat training to it's fullest.

The Bad: They made three key errors with this flick, 2 bad, 1 ugly.
First: location. They changed the setting from New York City to Miami and Puerto Rico. While, true, in the comic the Punisher does not stay in one place too long, and he does do his fair amount of international scum removal, he is based out of the NYC area. More to the point, his origin is. While the location doesn't hurt or alter the story all that much, in keeping with the purity of the character and his environment taking him out of the city was a big mistake.
Second: the Skull. I agree with the idea of taking Punisher out of his black spandex and white gloves in the name of this more of a realistic Marvel movie, but you can only go so far in keeping it the Punisher in more than name alone. That said the Skull symbol on his chest is key to the character. It is the one aspect of his costume that defines him from so many other characters, cinematic or in print. While the skull is there it just doesn't stand out. It doesn't pop off his chest (figuritively); it barely even catches your eye. It needed to be bigger, bolder, more of a contrast to his attire. And certainly not hidden under a trenchcoat or straps.
And while I don't consider this one of the key errors this movie made, it should be noted. They humanized him too much, making him less like the soldier in a war against scum and more of a pathetic family man on a suicide mission. Drinking himself into a stuppor? That's not the Frank Castle I know.

The Ugly: The third key error they made was the change of his origin:
First they made him some deep-cover FBI agent instead of the veteran just happy to be with his family.
Second they get rid of his daughter, leaving just the wife and son as his closest family.
But instead of just those two being killed off, they bring us his WHOLE extended family... father, mother, uncles, cousins, third cousins, etc. And they kill them all off! That's a pretty big difference.
Next WHY they all die changes. Here, it's done as revenge against FBI Agent Castle, who's last job left a crime bosses son dead... so clearly Frank's family must pay the price... all of them. But in the comic it really was a story of wrong place, wrong time. The Castles were picnicing in Central Park, accidently witness a crime in progress, and are killed off because these criminals don't want any witnesses. To sum up, we're talking about death based on revenge versus death based on bad luck (as it were).
While the Punisher's back story is rarely focused on these days, what with him so committed to his mission he has almost forgotten why he got there, the fact is it IS his origin.
And I'm pretty sure his legal/birth name is not actually Frank Castle, but something like Francis Castlilloni or something else clearly Itallian; Castle is just the name he changed it to to seperate himself from the Mafia scum he so enjoys killing.

How Close to Perfect: 5/10 This is a hard one to judge. One the one side by changing his origin, rellocating him, and taking away a good chunk of his costume you turn Punisher into yet another random action/revenge hero. He is Punisher in name, actions, and look alone.
On the other hand, really Punisher IS just your standard action/revenge hero. Much like James Bond in all his unrelated yet connected movies and books, Punisher is a character who month after month starts yet another mission, unrelated to previous stories, but continued in a fashion. Punisher is basically Marvel's attempt to bring an action anti-hero to the page each and every month.
Punisher should be the easiest Marvel character to put to screen, because he was probably the one character in the Marvel Universe who is more Action Movie than Superhero Comic. There is nothing special in his origins, no radiation, cosmic weapon, destiny, or genetic ubertrait to make him more than a man who seeks revenge. Yet, somehow, they fucked up anyway.
They rewrote his origin, yet the comic barely focuses on that anyway. They changed the local, but really there was nothing they did in Miami that couldn't have been NYC. They changed his costume, yet he is still in all black with a white skull. This movie, at it's core, was the Punisher... but using this logic so are nearly all the action movies (were the hero uses a gun rather than martial arts)