Gorier Than Expected

The theatrical trailer for The Spirit (2008) steals lines from a couple different comic book movies. First, some character yells "who are you?" à la the mugger at the beginning of Batman (1989). Worse yet is the voice of the main character saying "I'm on my way" with exactly the same tone that Warren Beatty said the exact same line in Dick Tracy (1990).

Punisher: War Zone (two and a half stars total) borrows from Dick Tracy too, but just its colorful cinematography. There's the red mafia boardroom and flare on their dinner table, wet yellow alleyways, green neon club signs, and blue flourescent subway tunnels. Sounds comic booky? Well maybe it is, but I never saw the Punisher as comic booky. There's not a lot of color on the printed page of his series so there's not a reason for an orange star in my review. I do give a full green star for the new Marvel Knights logo before the opening credits and the fast pace of the film.

Take it or leave it, the most faithful aspect of this most recent adaptation is the violence, the abundant, fast-paced, almost surgical violence, but maybe not the gore. Remember when an exploding head in Glory (1990) was enough for an R-rating, and when Pepsi came along to make an edited version for schools that was the only scene they took out? The war in Punisher: War Zone is less Glory and more Evil Dead II (1987). It's an hour and a half straight of exploding heads. I realize that all the reviews and trailers warned of this, but the gore I didn't expect has nothing to do with vigilante executions. What I didn't expect was the makeup of the villain, Jigsaw. It's easily more horrifying than all the exploding heads, The Elephant Man (1980), and Freddy Krueger combined.

But enough about the look of the film. Let's look at the stars I do give it. Half a red star goes to the moral debate in the dialoge (yes, I'm going there). Who punishes the Punisher? What happens when his code of no innocent casualties is accidentally broken? How come cops and mobsters haven't gone after him for five whole years? Aside from an extremely unrealistic grave visiting scene and the unbelievably childish police department, the script isn't that corny. The direction of the characters was. Seinfeld's Newman plays the Punisher's right-hand man, Microchip, but he's wasted on the corniest dialogue. His pep talk at the beginning and (SPOILER ALERT) martyrdom at the end are cartoonish at best. The villains' Brooklyn accents are worse than cartoonish. BUT... when I look at all the other gory movies I've seen this year: Death Race, The Happening, Rambo, Wanted, The X-Files: I Want To Believe (all 2008), it becomes apparent what will make Punisher: War Zone stick out. It's the only fun one.

Half a yellow star goes to a near silent Punisher that makes you realize how the character would move in real life. He walks slowly but efficiently under the weight of his armor and weapons (finally an action movie with no slo-mo or wire work!) and I'd never really felt that while reading the comic. I didn't like the movement in the Spider-Man (2002) movies because it looked more like falling between webswings rather than webswinging, but I like sluggish Punisher. Not as much as the Keysi Fighting Method-ical Dark Knight (2008) though. Before I forget, the racially diverse gangs at the end are remniscient of The Warriors (1979) and the fist fight with the federal agent is the best in the whole movie. The latter is a better match for the Punisher's training and combat style. In much the same way that I believe the Joker is Batman's archenemy because he's just as smart as him, I believe that Jigsaw should do more just counterbalance the Punisher with reckless collateral damge. All four comic book characters are EQUALLY insane, so that can't be the measure you use to tell them apart.

I'd like to share the best user comment I've ever read on IMDb, which is somewhat related to Punisher: War Zone. For the record, I've never seen the movie being discussed here, but I feel it applies to most comic book movies, crime dramas (not just about gangsters), and westerns: "Here is the main misunderstanding; people judge this as a straight gangland flick, when in reality what you've really got on your hands is as pretty close as you'll get to a love story for males. Think about it: Whereas women have their chick flicks, men simultaneously rely on gangster films as their emotional outlet. Women can vent by crying over romance and tragedy, men achieve euphoria through the male bonds and codes of honor prevalent in gangland films. Here you've got Billy Bathgate, the young street hood who becomes the apprentice to Dutch Schultz, failing gangster who's making enemies faster than he can make friends. He's idealistic and ambitious, two qualities males generally find positive in one another; men in the audience can relate to Billy. Just as a female reading romance novels can become the heroines, the males watching Billy Bathgate can become the title character." (Duke Savage, 5 February 2003)