I went to see this expecting to be highly disappointed but thankfully I wasn’t. Don’t get me wrong this film will not appeal to everyone (especially the squemish!) It will appeal to any fan of violent action movies and Punisher comic books (especially the Marvel Max run)
There are numerous name drops from previous Punisher stories. Most notably Micro and Martin Soap but also throwing in some charchters from the Max run such as McGinty from ‘Kitchen Irish’, Ink and Pitts from ‘In the beginning’ and Christu and his unnamed father from ‘The Slavers’. With other characters showing up in name only. Even some of the deaths in the film will be familiar to readers of the series.
The villain of the piece is Billy ‘The Beaut’ Russo aka Jigsaw is played with flair by Dominic West, although I had heard bads things about his performance I feel that he got the murderous insanity of the character down well.
Ray Stevenson as the anti-hero of the piece got across the Frank Castle from the Max series well (about as well as Thomas Jane did for the Marvel Knights version of the character) but never completely nailed it. Maybe Frank Castle is one of those characters that just cannot translate to the big screen?
Overall it’s a good film and if you want some mindless violence, or if you’re a fan-boy like me, I Recommend you check this out.
I feel I need to give this two scores depending on your standing:
If you’re a Punisher fan – 7.5/10
If not – 6/10
