Advance Thoughts on Punisher: War Zone
I hit the premiere of Punisher: War Zone in Hollywood last night, and those seeking a mash-up of the extreme, over-the-top violence of new millennium action-horror cinema with the sort of charmingly ham-fisted, blasé narrative incongruities of straight-to-video action flicks of years gone by can take a sort of depraved solace in the film, a ridiculous quasi-sequel to 2004's big screen comic book adaptation, starring Thomas Jane as a Vietnam War veteran turned crusading vigilante. This time Ray Stevenson (HBO's Rome) takes over the role of Frank Castle, still haunted by the murder of his family and still committed to taking out mafioso-types, including the especially nefarious Billy Russoti (Dominic West).
Battling over edits, director Lexi Alexander at one point reportedly considered taking her name off the project, and it's not hard to feel sympathetic. From a storytelling point-of-view, everything about this movie feels cribbed and/or lazily reconstituted, and it certainly doesn't help that the facially deformed Billy takes as a nickname Jigsaw, the moniker of another contemporary horror franchise puppetmaster. Still, faces are (literally) punched in, and bodies hit the ground at a prodigious clip. By its end, when the film has almost morphed into a surreal comedy, one realizes that this craptacular, so-bad-it's-good mess is the modern-day, steroidal answer to classic-era Steven Seagal neck-punchers. All that's missing is about a dozen lines of yelped ADR from expiring victims.
congrats on posting something that proves you know nothing about this movie
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I appreciate your thoughts, but wow were they way off. I wanted to take your word on the story-telling criticism, but the fact that your preface was wrong brings it into serious doubt.
It's not a sequel, quasi-sequel, or anything to do with the 2004 film at all. In fact, if you had even seen the 2004 film, you'd know that Jane's portrayal of Castle was no longer a Vietnam vet. It doesn't follow the same story in the comics.
Aside from that, the Jigsaw character wasn't created for this movie after the Saw film franchise. Jigsaw's been in the books since way before those ridiculous movies came out.
I know you wanted to hurry up and post something after a screening, but be a little more responsible next time.
Pretty irresponsible
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It's really too bad that somebody who reviews a film makes so little effort to inform himself about The Punisher character and his mythology. If you had, just as a small example, you would know that Jigsaw pre-dated the Saw character by about ten years. I saw this film last night, the same place you did. It's a rocking, roller-coaster of a ride that will please Punisher fans, if not this critic.
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Still to came the movie Punisher War Zone 2008 finger biting movie it can be, as I saw in the trailer. Topic was marvelous and very much fair. Acting was superb. But I think if the punisher. Get his work more difficult it was better.
http://blog.80millionmoviesfree.com/in-theaters/the-punisher-war-zone-2008-ready-to-take-on-jigsaw see the movie trailer
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