Rating: 
Summary: Not too bad!
Review: This is about Frank Castle ( Dolph Lundgren) who's family died in Car accident when he was a former cop, he is now a vigilantee named " The Punisher" who fights crime.It's not completely accurate to the comics cause it doesn't have the Skull on the shirt, the van full of weapons, the nerdy helper "Micro" and no drunk to help him, or did he ever lived in the sewers to speak to god nor was he a officer. But this was preety much action packed and was very decent in my opinion, it could have been better but the new one coming out next year might be even better,
Rating: 
Summary: If society won't punish the guilty, he will.
Review: While rooting around in a bargain bin at a local store, I came across this, the supposedly bad 1989 adaptation of a great Marvel comic. Being at a cheap price, I thought "What have I got to lose?" Action fans, your ship has come. This film has it all: bullets, babes, bombs, spiked balls, shruikens, impalings, poison, a Harley, and the mob. Dolph Lundgren stars as Frank Castle, an ex-cop who went underground (literally) as a vigilante, known to the media as "The Punisher", after the deaths of his wife and kids thanks to a car bomb, and after being declared legally dead. His line of work includes killing mobsters because of a hatred against them (they planted the family-killing car bomb), and because of this, The Franco crime family has weakened, along with dozens of others, forcing Gianni Franco, the leader of one of the families, to come in and take control of them. Franco has a plan to bring the families together as one unit (for ordinary citizens, this is bad news). However, this has attracted the attention of the Yakuza, Asia's most powerful crime syndicate, and their boss, Lady Tanaka, who decide to take over the families and all their interests. In order to sway the mobsters to their cause, they kidnap their children. Now Castle must fight to save the lives of the children of the people he has fought against for five years, while at the same time fighting alongside the man who killed his family. The cast works well, with Lundgren having a good performance, and Lou Gossett Jr. as Castle's former partner, trying to prove that Castle is still alive and is The Punisher. The disc has a widescreen transfer, and grain show up sometimes, noticeably in the end credits. The extras are severly lacking, consisting of production notes that look like movie trivia strung together with no enhancement, a trailer for overseas distribution (the film went direct to video in the U.S.), and cast and crew bios. Not Artisan's best, but then again, some of their early releases have no features at all. Good popcorn fun. THE PUNISHER
(1989, R) Frank Castle/The Punisher: Dolph Lundgren
Jake Berkowitz: Louis Gossett Jr.
Gianni Franco: Jeroen Krabbé
Lady Tanaka: Kim Miyori
Dino Moretti: Bryan Marshall
Samantha "Sam" Leary: Nancy Everhard Director: Mark Goldblatt
Writer: Boaz Yakin MOVIE: 4.5
VIDEO: 4.5
AUDIO: 5
EXTRAS: 2.5
MENUS: 2.5
OVERALL: 4
Rating:
Summary: Good but not the Punisher
Review: I liked this movie a lot but it just didn't seem like the Punisher. I saw this movie halfway through on TV once and didn't even realize it was the Punisher and Punisher is my favorite comic book character. Lundgren fits the part of Punisher well though and the story is pretty good and you get a lot of good action scenes. Can't wait for the new one coming out.
Rating: 
Summary: THIS IS THE WORST MOVIE I HAVE EVER SEEN
Review: THIS MOVIE WAS SO AWEFUL. I TRIED TO LOOK AND WATCH THIS MOVIE WITH A POSITIVE ATTITUDE, BUT ALAS THIS MOVIE DISAPPOINTED ME IN SO MANY WAYS, THAT I RETURNED THE DVD BACK TO THE STORE AND DEMANDED A REFUND. DONT WASTE YOUR TIME IT'S NOT EVEN WORTH IT, DOLPH IS CAPABLE OF WAY BETTER THAN THIS, AND WHAT THE HE** IS LOUIS GOSSETT JR. DOIN HERE. IF YOU WATCH THIS EXPECTING IT TO BE CLOSE OR HAVE THE SLIGHTEST RESEMBLENCE TO THE COMIC YOU WILL BE SADLY DISAPPOINTED. I THINK LOUIS & DOLPH NEEDED SOMETHING TO DO IN THERE SPARE TIME, AND I THINK THEY JUST WANTED TO ADD SOME MOVIES ON THERE BELT. THE STORY: A COP'S FAMILY IS KILLED AND HE SURVIVES TO RISE FROM THE MURKY DEPTHS OF NEW YORK'S SEWERS TO BECOME THE AVENGING PUNISHER. HE GETS HIS BUTT KICKED AND TORTURED(SOME SUPERHERO HUH!), AND DOES MORE DAMAGE THAN GOOD. THE CHARACTERS GET LOST IN THE CONFINES OF THE MOVIE, AND WANDER INTO NOTHINGNESS. THE MOVIE WAS BADLY WRITTEN AND THE WRITTER SHOULD DO HIMSELF AND THE AUDIENCE A FAVOR AND STOP WRITTING MOVIES. I ALWAYS TRY TO FIND AT LEAST SOMETHING POSITIVE IN A MOVIE, YET THIS MOVIE GAVE ME NOTHING, AND THATS EXACTLY WHAT WE GOT AND HOPEFULLY WE SHALL NEVER GET ANYTHING LIKE THIS AGAIN.
Rating:
Summary: "Here is justice, here is punishment, here in me"
Review: I honestly don't get all the bashing this 1989 adaption of the comic has gotten. Since Marvel found a new money source with the big screen adaptions of X-Men, Spider-Man, and Daredevil (not to mention the upcoming X-Men 2 and The Hulk), it's obvious this film will look far inferior to those, but I like this for what it is. True, The Punisher isn't the best comic to film adaption in history (but it's far from the worst), but let's be honest; when the original comic had first started, it wasn't all that great, and those mid-late nineties relaunches weren't anything to write home about either (although the more recent Punisher books have been phenominal), and let's not forget this is one of the last one man army kill everything 80's films among the lines of Commando and Missing in Action, and I like it for what it is and isn't. For the most part this film stays true to the roots of the comic, unlike other comic to film adaptions like Batman & Robin and Spawn. Dolph Lundgren isn't the best actor in the world, but his stoic expressionless face and badass overall look suit the character of Frank Castle very well. So there's no skull, no van full of weapons, so what? Despite all that, The Punisher is still a good comic to film movie worth watching. And yes, I have heard of an upcoming new Punisher movie, but something tells me Marvel should quit while they're ahead before one of they're films tanks mightily.
Rating:
Summary: Punisher for 2004 should be much better!
Review: This movie is along the lines of COMMANDO and all those Chuck Norris films: It is bad 80's action, only this time it's when such films had entered their death throes.
Dolph is easily one of the worst actors in the history of cinema, and this adaptation of the famous comic book vigilante is about as accurate as Joel Shumacer's horrible Batman sequels. The Punisher Movie is to The Punisher Comic what The Phantom Menace is to The Empire Strikes Back. That is why I am so happy about the new Punisher film which is currently in production.
The script has been put together by the sreenwriter of DIE HARD 3, and promises to be much more like the comics, and to be a dark, gritty action film. It has a much smaller budget than most of the other Marvel Movie productions, but it doesn't need any CGI or film-trick fanciness.
It just needs good treatment.
Though at the time as my writing this no actor has been cast for the lead, a character actor named Thomas Jane has been offered the part.
He may prove to be just fine in the boots, but we'll have to see.
Personally I believe the role begs for Stallone. He and The Punisher are both New York Italians, both in their fifties, and both tough and buff. Just look at some of the great cover art done (on some of the newer comics) by Tim Bradstreet. It makes the Punisher look just like Stallone.
While The Punisher is supposed to be 8 foot tall and 500 pounds, we need to be realisitic here. We don't want some Mr. Universe playing him with all the acting talent of a braindead rodent.
Stallone is just big enough, and he can act. Anyone who doubts his ability needs to sit down and watch the original ROCKY and FIRST BLOOD, and then watch his excellent, low-key performance in COPLAND.
And anyone who doubts that he could pull off the role of The Punisher should sit down and watch his menacing performance in the remake of GET CARTER. America needs another vigilante film. FALLING DOWN was the last good one we had. DIRTY HARRY and DEATH WISH are fantastic movies. The new THE PUNISHER could easily follow suit. Leave this Barf Lundren version to collect dust on the video wharehouse shelves. A new Punisher film is on the way and at the very least it could hardly be any worse than this.
Rating:
Summary: Everyone hates the Punisher...
Review: Welcome to the real world kiddies...I see some of you whine "no skull on the T-shirt", "No big Van full of weapons", "No spiderman", hehe, ok, maybe the last one was an exageration...but what you have to realize is that this movie was made in 1989, Spiderman wasnt even a sparkle in some movie CEO's eye, and CGI's were still in their "lets just tie them to a rope and fly them around in the studio, then we will color the rope out later" phase. This movie was real life, gritty, dangerous, the hero took some beat downs, its not like Batman where everything is flashy and bright, and "The bat-card..never leave home without it" no, none of that nonsense, and please...stallone as Punisher... the guy is like 5'6 and has an accent no one could get over, Lundgren played it great, in my opinion he has always been an under-rated actor, always in the shadows of Sly and Arnold, maybe its cause he doesnt have an accent...hmm, anyway, its a good flick if you like the punisher, but are not a die hard fan, die hard fans will surely notice the gaps in story line... but they stuck to their guns, he lost his family tragically, he went renegade, he completly abondoned his life and went psycho...Its reality..you want flashy costumes, and funny remarks, and good comic reliefs, go see spidey and batman, on second thought, just see spiderman, or batman part one, the others will make you hate batman...If you one to see a renegade cop whos mind has seriously taken a walk off the map, and a funny little drunk british actor/bum see this, its a good flick, if you dont mind reality. Nick
Rating:
Summary: This may punish some unsuspecting viewers.
Review: The Punisher was the last gasp of New World Pictures, one of the countless independent studios (along with Cannon and Empire) that tumbled into the dust when the home video explosion of the 80s gobbled up movie theater audiences. Adapted from a Marvel Comic Book, the movie stars Dolph Lundgren as Frank Castle, an embittered ex-cop that is killing off criminals in revenge for the murder of his own family. Louis Gossett Jr is Castle's former partner, who wants to capture the vigilante more for personal reasons than those of justice. The story is both ironic and simplistic. The Punisher has so weakened the grip of the crime families, that it allows a new, far more sadistic threat to come in a take over. When the new crime organization kidnaps the old crime families children for the slave labor market, The Punisher must join forces with his hated enemies to help destroy an evil he actually helped to create. The movie contains enough bone crunching action to keep it from being boring, but just because Mark Goldblatt was an excellent editor of action movies did not make him a good director of those movies - he frames just about everything in medium shot. Lundgren says very little and looks more sleepy than burned out. The DVD contains some info on the cast and crew and the movie's trailer.
Rating:
Summary: i wanna see a remake of punisher
Review: To start off, this is a cheesy movie. This is a big dissapointment to marvel comics and a slap in the face to the fans, they really weren't going for the comic appeal in this movie. They only made this movie so they could try to make money off the name punisher and they didn't do well with that, Punisher is one of my favorite comic books and since they made all these other comic book movies like Spider-Man, DareDevil, X-Men, The Hulk and i think the punisher should be remade and everyone would go see it, I wanna see punisher remade cause it would be a cool ... movie and it can a sweet anti-hero movie and go for the comic appeal this time and wear the skull and get a cool actor to play him.
Rating: 
Summary: Best comic adaption ever!!!
Review: The Punisher is a very entertaining action movie and the best comic film adaption I've ever seen. Just like the comic book, the movie is moody and very dark. It has the atmosphere that films like Batman have tried to capture. Dolph Lundgren is beleivable as the heartless hero, and Louis Gosset Jr. is unbeleivable. The fight scenes are also great and almost nonstop. In the movie, a rivalry begins between the mob and the Yakuza (Chinese mafia) resulting in a violent gang war groing on the streets. When all the children of mob members are kidnapped by the Yakuza, Dolph has to step in. Jeroen Krabbe stars as a ruthless mob boss and is pretty decent. As I said, all the action scenes are realistic and the movie hardly stops to breathe for it's full runtime. I recommend you buy this film right away if you're a fan of Lundgren or the comic book. You won't be disappointed
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