PreREview: Punisher: War Zone
Trailer Blasts Onto The Internet! But Is It Locked And Loaded or a Complete Misfire?
Punisher: War Zone
June 13th, 2008 - Ok, ok, I’ll TRY and refrain from TOO many gun puns in this review. No promises, though. I just might shoot some…blanks…(rim shot). But first, check it out here so you know what I’m talking about.
The first shot of the trailer is promising enough, and, to me, reveals a clear creative vision for the movie (if not just for the trailer). It’s a shot of the hammer of a handgun pulling back…and firing, with the requisite flash and some off-screen feminine, desperate “NO”!. This summarizes the whole thing in a nutshell: it’s about action, it’s about guns being fired, sure, but it’s also about pain, and the consequences of firing that gun. This is emphasized by the next few shots: an explosion in an upper floor of an apartment building, a quick shot of a man sitting alone on the grass with his dead children in his lap, and a close-up of the man’s eyes, looking dead and lost and…changed…
I ask you—what could be a better introduction to the Punisher story than that? It goes by quick, but it sums it all up succinctly and easily for people who don’t know a Punisher from a publisher, and it even makes it clear for fans who can tell you Frank Castle’s platoon number from Vietnam. This is a new take on the Punisher, and, if we can judge the resemblance of these images--specifically the shot of Frank Castle sitting on a picnic blanket with his family dying in his lap—and compare them to the comics origins, then this preview seems to be proudly declaring that this is THE definitive version of the Punisher story up on the big screen for the first time ever.
I don’t have to remind you of the awkward Miami-based massacre of Frank Castle’s family in the most-recent Thomas Jane-starring Punisher movie. And I actually think PART of that touch was the only step in the right direction that movie took. They killed his WHOLE damn family, not just his wife and kids, and that can very easily break a man. But if they’re reversing that and bringing back the Central Park, wrong-place-wrong-time, original version of the origin, then I say welcome back. Because this all just seems so much…purer, somehow.
Then we have the NY intro. shots, a bridge at night, police loading a body into an ambulance, but then we hear some troubling VO explaining ‘This city is under some kind of terrorist threat’. Buh--? Really? Feels a little like pandering to post-9/11 woes or something. The Punisher doesn’t have to fight terrorists. He’s not supposed to. He’s supposed to just be steadfastly focused on killing the everyday criminals; the guys who make DAILY life worse by operating outside the law and spreading misery. So right away I’m hoping the terrorist thing is a red herring. But then comes the shot of the even-more-troublesome sack of MYSTERIOUS TERRORIST EXPLOSIVES that glow ‘comic book’ blue and I’m all kinds of worried.
First of all, that looks a leeeetle too fancy for Punisher villains. Punisher villains are not supposed to be larger than life, and just because you make something glowing blue does not make it ‘comic book’, or ‘cool’, which is something that we see far too much of in action movies. It’s kind of a stamp of ‘we’re trying to make this cooler than real life’ or something, and what they’re neglecting to realize is, especially with the Punisher, it’s the real-life criminals, the everyday drug dealing murderer rapists (etc.) that are his stock in trade. So this, in my opinion, is the first big misstep.
Then we have the plot-hinting VO “something big is gonna happen”, what appears to be a table full of crime bosses in an overly-lit red-tinted room pulling guns on each other, then a few shots later, a different (?) table of crime figures having a meet of some sort, when the lights go out…and then a flare is lit by a solitary figure…a man in heavy body armor. The Punisher. A criminal is scared! The punisher points what looks like a crossbow with a laser sight at the screen! Explosion and someone flying out a window! Throwing someone into a wall and the tile/wall breaks—now let’s pause here for a moment, folks…this sort of thing has to stop in non-superpowered-character movies, ok? You can’t break a wall by throwing someone into it. You can break someone by throwing them into a wall, but the reverse is simply impossible. I suppose, if you were incredibly incredibly strong (hence superpowered), and threw someone at a tremendous velocity, that might be technically enough to break a wall, but a human being—even someone in top physical form and supreme muscular strength—simply can not break a wall with a human body. It just ain’t possible. So this sort of thing, which I see all too often in action movies and which I blame on the frigging sequence in the Matrix where he’s getting shot at in the lobby and all the tiles go all over the place, needs to be officially and mercifully ended. It takes you right out of the movie. It tells you that you don’t think you’re paying attention. It tells you that you don’t have the common sense to realize that walls are much harder than flesh. And it tells you that they value ‘cool’ above common sense, above keeping you invested in the movie’s sense of reality. So…Misstep #2.
Then a bunch of shooting in a factory (of course), including a confusing shot where the Punisher seems to be double-shooting revolvers, but we hear machine gun fire. Whu--? Then the Punisher coldly intones “This is just the beginning”, and we begin to see what Ray Stevenson’s version of the Punisher will be: a cold, heartless absolute badass who takes no quarter. And to that I say, well done.
Then some action shots, shooting, jumping, slashing, etc. and once more we have what might be a possible misstep (but it’s not a clear enough indication to call it Misstep #3): the bright colors. Each shot seems to be brightly red (magenta, actually) or brightly yellow or dark with other bright colors in it. I know, from following the development online, that they’re trying to recreate the look of Timothy Bradstreet’s awesome Punisher colors, and yes, he does tend to stick to one overall color tone over more even-toned ‘realistic’ lighting, but this looks like they’re doing that TOO much. Like they’re taking the wrong aspects of Bradstreet’s work and amping it up needlessly.
More action jumping/shooting/sliding, and we come to realize that it appears the Punisher wears that up-to-his chin heavy body armor in the whole frigging movie. Or at least that’s the impression we’re getting. We also only see the iconic skull once—when he lands on a car or something—and while I like that it’s not bright white, it’s still a tad too subtle at the moment. So, officially, that’s Misstep #3: misrepresenting the Punisher’s costume/iconography. At the moment, he just looks like a guy who’s really worried about being shot and who likes to use two guns at once.
Then there’s that shot, looking up, of the Punisher seemingly dangling from a chandelier, spinning around and shooting in all directions at once. I’m immediately reminded of both “Tomb Raider” and “Hitman”, and those aren’t necessarily good associations. Because, y’know, the Punisher shouldn’t be about style. He should be about getting things done. Yet, for some reason, I like this shot. I like that it hints at a pseudo-holy mission for the character, I like the allusion to the ‘Hanged Man’ of the tarot (‘Hanged Man with TWO MACHINE GUNS), I like what it conveys. And the ‘holy mission’ aspect of it is strengthened by the next offscreen voice: “God be with you, Frank.”, (accompanied by a cool passing-through-wall shot with the lone Punisher on one side and an entire squad of gun-toting something-or-others on the other side). And then the Punisher lets out a Misstep-redeeming line that actually makes me pretty pumped to see the movie: “Sometimes I like to get my hands on God…” and then BOOM! A whole bunch of gun-toting booms get blown away in an explosion.
NICE.
It finishes with a post-title shot of the Punisher walking towards us with this chin-armor get up and faded skull, which is a little underwhelming, but hey, I have to say, I’m up for it now. This looks more confident and focused than that Thomas Jane trash heap. Not that he made it a trash heap, just that I dislike it so much I can’t be bothered to look up the director’s name.
Overall, this looks like it will be a fun, fast-paced shoot ‘em up with just enough grit and emotional resonance to make it our first solid Punisher movie.
7.5 out of 10
As a trailer, it works very well. As a Punisher-reimagining-reintroduction, it missteps a little too much. The proof will be in the Punisher pudding* in December…
*NOTE: Punisher Pudding would be dark chocolate with raspberries (head shots!) and little marshmallow skulls, in case you were wondering.
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