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Punisher Punishes Movie Goers

Dec 18

AndrewMovies Movies, Superhero 1 Comment

Question: What’s the worst super hero movie adaptation of all time?

Answer: Yeah, it’s the Punisher. Not even the Dolph Lundgren version, which at least had some redemption value for its high camp and 80′s veneer. No, the worse offender was the Thomas Jane recast which was so unbelievably bad that we were laughing our way through it.

Maybe it’s because Punisher isn’t really a super hero (being a self-righteous marginal type that he is). Nothing in the movie worked, from the opening “origin” sequence where Frank Castle’s entire lineage in wiped out in about 20 seconds to shooting, the secret identity he takes on and lives in an apartment building with curious folk. It’s all turgid. I haven’t seen War Journal, but word on the street is they went for graphic violence in order to make the character palatable. Hopefully, Marvel will finally bury this franchise for good.

That said, when a super hero movie goes bad, it’s bad. Exhibit A: Elektra. Why take someone like Jennifer Garner and make her soulless and flat? Then fold in an almost completely non-existent plot (“back from the dead” isn’t much to work with, folks, though I guess Whedon milked it for half a season) and silly action ninja sequences that wouldn’t sully Kung Fu Hustle. The movie was so bland in every aspect, it’s not worth the effort to crown it the worst ever.

Exhibit B: Ghost Rider. An intricate plot that really just wasn’t interesting, casting Nicholas Cage in the role of the adult Johnny Blaze when they could have just stuck with Matt Long and the movie would have been at least as interesting, and a completely unexplained appearance by Carter Slade was just too much. Some nifty visuals and a wicked Blackheart played by Wes Bentley kept this movie from being the worst.