You, sir, have just saved me $9.00, and I thank you profusely.
As a recent Punisher fan (I read the Ennis/Dillon Preacher trades and wanted more), I get that the skull is a great decoy target. I get that he’s a little upset about his family dying and wants to rain death down on his enemies. But explosions shaped like SKULLS? That seriously sounds like a touch that Nintendo would add to a Mario or a Zelda title. And while Link and Mario are heroes with their own epic backstories, they ain’t Frank.
I don’t want my explosions “shaped like” anything except may-y-y-y-y-ybe mushrooms. I thought George Lucas’ decision to add a “ring” effect to his in-space explosions in Episode I smacked of earthbound thinking and general stupidity. If something’s going to be “shaped like” a skull, it had better be the moth in Silence of the Lambs or the skull in Hamlet. Everyone else, stick to moth-shaped moths, skull-shaped skulls, and explosion shaped explosions!
I didn’t see the movie, but my brother did, and I flipped through his copy of the handout.
Agree with you completely – while the Punisher’s “origin issue” might have historical significance, as a storytelling device for newbies, it just flopped. Having the Jackal run around as an obvious psycho who doesn’t get shot just makes it weirder. They should have reprinted issue #1 of the first Punisher limited series instead (especially with that lovely Mike Zeck cover).
[quote]
3) How 'bout a little back-story on why The Russian is such a bad-ass? Would it kill you to have a little exposition? Of course, being a fan, I knew why he was such an unstoppable killing machine, but nobody else in the theater did.
Please tell me about that.
No, its nothing like that. he has no magic explosives
minor spoiler, not really worth worrying over:
Frank decides to send the world of crime a nasty little message by placing explosives that, cumulatively, make a flaming pattern like his skull shirt when seen from the air.
I’m at work without access to my Punisher issues, so excuse me if I screw anything up.
The Russian was a secret operative that was literally almost unstoppable. He was summoned by a crime family to deal with Frank.
Knives, bullets, bombs, nothing could kill the guy. He was more like a Terminator than anything else, and possessed with a bizarrely cruel sense of humor. He was definitely a product of the warped Ennis/Dillon collective brain trust.
IIRC, he was finally beheaded. My memory’s honestly a little fuzzy on the cause of his demise, but he damn sure wouldn’t have been killed falling down a flight of stairs.
Killing the Russian was one of the more beautiful parts of that series and, had they kept it in the movie, Bumpo would have had a reason to exist.
I just read Ebert’s review and he mentions Spacker Dave. I don’t recall anyone calling him/calling himself Spacker. Did I miss it? If it’s not in there, it’s one of the on oversight of Marvel movies on the order of Wolverine not saying, “I’m the best there is at what I do” (everyone tells me an errant “bub” slipped in there somewhere, but I don’t believe them).
The reason none of the military units sent to kill him ever succeeded was two things 1) They did everything according to regulation, meaning that they were predictable (a point the comic forcefully drives home), and 2) they never bothered to figure out what his actual weaknesses were. I won’t go into details, but let’s just say that if one of them bothered to pack a flamethrower or napalm, Russie would’ve been history a long time ago.
everybody - Didn’t see the movie, but did read all the way through the comic book adaptation (which seems to be a requirement these days).
Eh…clumsy pastiche, no real direction, so-so writing…pretty much par for the course for this type of movie, no big deal. It’s a perfectly servicable action flick. My question is, if this is all they were aiming for, why did they need a famous comic book character? The purists are going to be outraged, they’re not really bringing in a lot of mainstream action fans with the toned down approach, they story’s certainly nothing to write home about, and they’re spending a lot of money on the license that could’ve been put to much better use.
I mean, with Spider-Man, at least you can get a lot of death-defying shots of him swinging around the city and fighting off entire gangs. The Punisher…what’s the point?
IIRC, it’s near the end of the first film, when he’s fighting Sabretooth on the Statue of Liberty. Sabretooth jumps down into the area where the other X-Men are pinned by Magneto, and Logan shows up behind him and says, “Hey bub, I’m not finished with you yet.”
I’m pretty sure he says it in the second movie, too, but I can’t remember when.
And since this is a Punisher thread, let me just add that Thomas Jane looks like a pouty little kid on steroids.
You convinced me! Milburn and I will stay home.
Is it worse-in-a good/bad-kind-of-way like “Leprechaun 2: Back 2 the hood” way?
Still … I will avoid. Thanks.
Just go.* Be glad you haven’t seen it. Leave it at that. Walk away. There’s nothing but ruin in there for you. And if you do keep pressing, it will mean that I failed.
You don’t know what that will do to me. So please, for the both of us…Just go.*
*From issue #12 of MK Punisher - Concerned Chairman.
[QUOTE=tracer]
If you want to see some real stinkers, take a look at the Marvel Comics TV serieses and TV pilots that aired during the late 1970s. There was:[ul][li]Dr. Strange (only one pilot ep ever made)[/li][li]Spider-Man starring Nicholas Hammond (lasted one season)[/li][li]Captain America starring Reb Brown (one 2-hour pilot and one 2-hour follow-on ep)[/li][li]The Incredible Hulk starring Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno (the only one of these attempts to catch on – but later “return of” episodes guest-starred Daredevil and an awful interpretation of Thor)[/ul]All of these serieses and pilots departed severely from the way the characters were portrayed in the comic books, usually by drastically weakening their superpowers.[/li][/QUOTE]
Wow. I avoided this thread like the plague until I saw the movie and then, as I was walking out of the theatre I thought to myself, “That must be a joke title. I’m going to open the thread and see nothing but praise for the movie.”
I’m dumbstruck that this film got such bad reviews. It was GREAT. I’ve been reading comics for almost 20 years and watching bad comic movies for almost as long, and this one really made me proud.
It had just the right amount of action, good acting, memorable quotes, and a great denoument (I’ll admit the flaming skull was kind of lame though.)
My only regret is that they didn’t flesh the Russian out more. One of my favorite things about that character was something like this:
“He spent most of the 80s fighting in Afghanastan”
“Was he Russian Spetznaz?”
“No, he was on vacation. He liked it there.”
(paraphrased from memory)
All in all I thought this movie really shined. If you’re thinking of not seeing it just because this thread - don’t cheat yourself.
One major problem was that I never felt any empathy for the character. I didn’t care if he got his revenge. I actually felt more sympathy for John Travolta than I did for the Punisher. The exposition failed to really build a sense of a family. the wife and kid were just a plastic, Hollywood, “wife” and “kid.” They looked like they should have been in a detergent commercial.
I was bugged he bit where Castle is taking pictures of the main henchman (whatever his name was- I don’t care) while a voiceover describes all the horrible things about him, “he’s a killer, he’s a sadist,” etc.) and then to punctuate everything, Castles sees him kissing another man and shakes his head in disgust. It was like the audience was supposed to be extra offended because he was gay.
I was really bugged by the treatment of Travolta’s wife, both logically and asthetically. He just makes a snap decision after umpteen years of marriage and two grown kids to throw her under a train? Sure he thought she was cheating on him, but is it really plausible that he would just kill her out of the blue with no thought or remorse? It also disturbed me because it seemed so misogynistic, She was a “whore” so it was ok to murder her. I know that villains are supposed to do villainous things, but this woman was set up to be killed by the ostensible hero.
Numerous other plot holes and random stupidities have already been pointed out so I’ll leave it at that.
This movie made me long for Dolph Lungren. It’s that bad.
