Punisher: War Zone – How Marvel’s Forgotten Movie Failed And Why It Deserved Better
Now is the time to set the record straight: Punisher: War Zone is awesome.
Punisher: War Zone is the kind of movie that you either love or hate. For many people, it outright refuted a lot of what they like about the character of Frank Castle. Some audiences simply found it too goofy and gruesome for what superhero cinema was offering at the time. Even others just didn’t find the appeal in a new Punisher film after the less-than-beloved previous film that opened in 2004.
Now is the time to set the record straight: Punisher: War Zone is awesome. Not only is it awesome, but it’s one of the best Marvel adaptations ever made. Want an even bolder claim? It’s the best adaptation of the Punisher EVER.
Strap in and grab yourself a raincoat because it’s about to get very, very bloody in here.
Why Punisher: War Zone Deserved Better
Directed by Lexi Alexander, Punisher: War Zone takes the bulk of its inspiration from Garth Ennis’s run of Punisher stories under the MAX imprint. This label was created so that writers and artists could craft more mature and hard-edged tales with the Marvel canon of characters. While a lot of Ennis’s MAX issues were aggressively grim, he often injected black humor and over-the-top gore into certain arcs. He’d previously done a much more overtly comedic run with the Punisher under another label, Marvel Knights.
Alexander keyed in on this element to the character and ran with it. It’s the right decision because the Punisher is a very sticky character to handle. Any attempt to present him as a semi-heroic protagonist in a grounded universe is rough. Frank Castle is a serial killer and his stylistic trappings fetishize guns and vigilante murder in a way that’s really nasty. By taking the character and his world to outlandish heights, those problems aren’t nearly as upfront or relevant. They become aspects of self-aware ridiculousness. Punisher: War Zone is more than happy to take Frank Castle and make him into an R-rated Saturday morning superhero.
And boy howdy, does Punisher: War Zone have fun with that. We’re introduced to Castle as he raids a mafioso family party and his assault is unbelievably violent. But, all this bloodshed is presented with the same exaggerated execution as a Quentin Tarantino movie. This opening onslaught is a mission statement for the entire movie: don’t take this seriously.
Punisher: War Zone is here to have fun. And nearly every moment where Frank kills a bad guy is played for pure laughs. Whether it’s caving in a mobster’s skull with a single punch, exploding a thug while he’s on the toilet, or shooting a rocket at a parkouring henchman, this is a flick that’s all about putting a smile on your face.
That sensibility is reflected in the cast. Ray Stevenson plays Frank Castle as the poster boy for tormented badass dudes. While he certainly isn’t abandoning all the dramatic details of the character, Stevenson knows he’s there to look cooler than cool. When he responds to a priest’s blessing with, “Sometimes, I’d like to get my hands on God,” it’s so obvious that Stevenson gets exactly how to play this version of Castle.
What makes this purposeful silliness even more apparent are the villains. Dominic West plays the mangled Billy Russoti a.k.a. Jigsaw like he’s guesting on an episode of the ’60s Batman series. He’s going full camp and it’s an utter delight. And while actor Doug Hutchison is a creep in real life and deserves to be a pariah, his unhinged portrayal of James Russoti a.k.a. Loony Bin Jim is the kind of manic villainy we don’t get to see in a lot of comic book/superhero films these days. All the baddies are just as preposterous as the world they inhabit, and it further solidifies that Punisher: War Zone is a movie that’s not here to be anything other than a riot.
It’s also a movie that tries to emulate the vivid colors of a comic book through its lighting. Striking reds, blues, and greens drench scenes in the kinds of hyper-stylized auras that would become beloved in the John Wick series. Alexander heightens the world’s unreality with this clear decision, and it’s helped give the movie a standout look all these years later.
By the time the credits roll, Punisher: War Zone has delivered a comic book movie with emphasis on the word “comic.” It’s a hard-R celebration of overblown movie violence. And that might have been part of the reason it was rejected by audiences.
Why It Was Unfairly Overlooked
Like most movies that flounder at the box office and find an audience later, there are so many factors to consider when it comes to Punisher: War Zone getting the cold shoulder.
One of the biggest reasons is the year and time of its release. Punisher: War Zone hit theaters in December 2008. This is after The Dark Knight and Iron Man came out that same summer and reshaped what audiences found they wanted from comic book/superhero cinema. There wasn’t a place in the zeitgeist for a comic property like the Punisher to be treated as a near-parody of itself. Audiences now saw that superheroes could be brought to life in shockingly believable ways. Reality is something Punisher: War Zone is rejecting at nearly every turn. Its tongue is jutting through its cheek and that’s what makes it such a hoot, but audiences weren’t really vibing with that after Christopher Nolan and Jon Favreau delivered such iconic riffs on the superhero world.
Let’s also not ignore the fact that Punisher: War Zone is R-rated in a way that is designed to turn certain folks away. Audiences are okay with violence, even graphic depictions of it, but they can get a little weirded out with grisly violence that’s constructed for laughs. A lot of moviegoers experience cognitive dissonance when they experience extreme gore that’s meant to be funny. Punisher: War Zone is a cavalcade of gore and nearly all of it is intended to get a chuckle.
And while Punisher: War Zone has undergone reevaluation in recent years, there was certainly a contingent of Punisher fans who didn’t like seeing the character treated in such a ludicrous way. I’m not going to open up the can of worms that is the Punisher fandom but suffice to say that some folks glom onto the character for very warped reasons. They take Frank Castle far too seriously, and this unabashedly goofy take on the property wasn’t what they wanted to see.
It’s unfortunate because Punisher: War Zone features the only version of the character I find remotely satisfying. Yes, people really dig Jon Berenthal’s take on Frank Castle and I’m willing to hear defenses of both the 2004 and even the 1989 movies. But, once you consider a character like Frank Castle with even a hint of reality, it’s so difficult to find anything he’s involved in worth enjoying. This is why Punisher: War Zone‘s devil-may-care attitude seems like the best way to utilize the character.
If you’ve never seen Punisher: War Zone, you are missing out on a bold, brash, and bonkers movie. For those of you who laugh when Emil is turned into a wet puddle on Clarence Boddicker’s windshield in RoboCop, this is the kind of nutso splatterfest for you.
