The remake thinks of itself as clutching the tagline, “Nominated for 13 Academy Awards including Best Picture, `The Punisher’ is here, and he sure as HELL ain’t happy.”
I’ll admit it. The major problem I had with “The Punisher” was not its half-baked attempt at film noir, its lame-brained viciousness or even the director’s “punishing” assault on the viewer’s intelligence. (I’m referring here to director Jonathan Hensleigh’s uncanny skill at jack-hammering dramatic points home with a rumble of thunder and a streak of lightning.)
Quite frankly, I couldn’t lead myself to believe Thomas Jane as the sadistic, white-knuckled protagonist. The trouble I had with Jane as the Marvel Comics superhero Frank Castle wasn’t necessarily that he was bad, rather that he wasn’t bad enough. I don’t think I’m alone when I proclaim, “Long live Lundgren!”
Yes, you heard me. I know it may seem like I’ve stooped to the gravel bottom, but I mean it. Dolph Lundgren was so eloquently dreadful in his depiction of the Mafia fanny-paddler in the original film. A grin is forming just thinking about that 1989 classic in cheese-ball cinema. For those of you who appreciated Lundgren’s work as Ivan Drago in “Rocky IV,” you ain’t seen nothin’ until you’ve rented this preposterous bomb.
I recommend setting the line, “I will break you,” on the back burner because it will be replaced with “I punish the guilty.”
Anyway, the sets and special effects in the original version of “The Punisher” were unfathomable. The movie might as well have been shot on the set of “Killer Klowns from Outer Space.” Toss in some fight sequences marred by out-of-place sound effects and no conception of gravitational pull, not to mention triple-digit death counts, and you’ve got yourself a chucklelicious good time.
Certainly the remake has much higher production values and slightly superior acting, but it sorely lacks the flair of Lundgren and Louis Gossett Jr. I look at it as a slicked down version of the original.
To put things in perspective, the first film knew it blew poppy seed, and for that I’ve provided a place for the film in my heart. The remake thinks of itself as clutching the tagline, “Nominated for 13 Academy Awards including Best Picture, `The Punisher’ is here, and he sure as HELL ain’t happy.” All right, the movie can attest to a handful of crack-ups, but on the whole it took itself too damned seriously for my liking.
