Punisher: War Zone (Blu-ray)

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"Punisher: War Zone" is the third attempt in twenty years to bring the Marvel Comics Vietnam War vet turned New York City vigilante to life on the silver screen. The first attempt back in 1989 featured Dolph Lundgren and is more or less an unwatchable mess. The filmmakers took away his iconic skull shirt and made other changes that eliminated any connection to his comic roots. Fifteen years later, Marvel teamed up with Lionsgate to breathe new life into their murderous antihero and dumped "The Punisher" into theaters in 2004. Although the film´s script draws directly from the twelve-issue story arch "Welcome Back Frank" penned by comic legend Garth Ennis, it still failed on almost every level. Casting John Travolta as the main villain was probably their first mistake. Even though the 2004 film flopped in theaters, the movie made enough money to warrant a sequel, and in 2008 "Punisher: War Zone" was released to mostly negative reviews and went on to become Marvel´s lowest-grossing theatrical film to date. The poor performance and reception of "Punisher: War Zone" is a bit baffling, given that it´s a hell of a lot of fun and the most faithful comic book adaption this lifelong reader has ever seen. It´s incredibly violent, full of ethnic stereotypes, and light on plot; in other words, it´s exactly like 90% of the comic books the Punisher has ever appeared in.

In "Punisher: War Zone" we rejoin Frank Castle (Ray Stevenson), who is still fighting the mob and all associated goons, except this time he´s finally put himself in the crosshairs of the NYPD. After riddling a warehouse full of bullets in a firefight with Billy Russo (Dominic West), a mob killer known as Billy the Beaut for his handsome features, The Punisher realizes that one of the people he took down was an undercover cop. Overwhelmed with grief for his mistake The Punisher considers hanging up his arsenal once and for all until he finds out that Russo has survived his encounter with The Punisher. The Beaut has been reborn as the disfigured Scarface, teamed up with his cannibal brother Lonny Bin Jim (Dough Hutchison), and is going after the family of the slain undercover officer. In an attempt to make amends for his mistake, Castle decides to keep his war alive and stay one step ahead of the NYPD´s Punisher task force and take down Jigsaw once and for all.

While "Punisher: War Zone" is not a direct sequel to the previous Lionsgate "Punisher" film, it´s not a reboot, either. It more or less assumed that you´re already familiar with the vigilante´s origin and that he´ll be killing a bunch of people for the next 103 minutes of the film. This is not a smart action film; it´s less "Bourne" or "Bond" and more in line with last year´s "Rambo." "War Zone" is light on story and character development and heavy on firepower, digital blood, and explosives, which along with a decent main villain were the missing ingredients from the previous two Punisher films.

This time around the filmmakers were smart enough to pull a bad guy directly from the comics and cast a great actor in the role. Other Marvel villains like Bullseye, Doctor Doom, Typhoid Mary, The Kingpin, Venom, and Blackheart have been brought to cinematic life and faced drastic changes that effectively destroyed anything interesting about them. With Jigsaw the filmmakers stayed true to the source material and even though they saddled him with a new "crazy brother" character, it remains true to the over-the-top nature of the film. The main thing that makes Jigsaw work is the zeal and playful nature displayed by Dominic West. Getting a lead actor from one of the all-time greatest television shows (HBO´s "The Wire") was a great move and having him play against type was even smarter. The expressive and flamboyant nature of Jigsaw is a terrific antithesis for the dark emotionless brooding Punisher, which ultimately keeps the film from feeling too heavy. West´s chemistry with "X-Files" vet Hutchison as his insane brother is another highlight of the film that keeps it from being a joyless action flick.