Don't see the new Punisher movie

I was all set up and prepared to do a post discussing how so many prime time TV shows seem to want to reference fight club, but so few of them get it, but then... Then I saw the second Punisher movie (the third, if you count the original one a decade or so ago). "Punisher: Warzone".

Oh sweet jesus. Surely there are better stories that can be told. That movie was incredibly painful. I believe the metaphor I used on facebook to describe it was "It's like getting your wisdom teeth removed via your scrotum" (to female readers lacking in male genitalia, you'll have to imagine something quite painful and awkward).


1. The child. Sure, her father's dead, but would she REALLY latch on, that quickly, to a tall male who wanders in? Especially since this tall male makes her mother cry first time they meet. What did he do to her before she latched on? He gave her a flashlight. Whoop-di-do.

A note for next time. If you want a more emotional story, have her be afraid of him. She reminds him of his own daughter, so if she was bloody terrified of him that'd really screw with his head.


2. Use some ACTUAL bad guys. It's a comic book story, the only genre where you can get away with larger then life bad guys. Closest they had was 'Jigsaw', who basically was a normal mob boss made ugly. And Jigsaw's "muscle"? His crazy brother. He was nuts, but neither he nor the mob boss felt like larger then life threatening villains.

Throughout the movie it felt like they were trying to make them both into something more threatening then they are, but... They were only human. The opening scene shows the Punisher killing dozens of "only humans". At no point did it feel like he was in danger, especially since his always-worn bullet proof vest took about a dozen bullets at various points in the movie, only about three of which did more then make him blink. In the first (technically second) Punisher movie, they showed how he could be genuinely threatened and get the shit beaten out of him. In this one he felt like the Terminator sans imposing jawline.

Put the Terminator (without jawline) against a nutcase moron and an ugly bastard who cries when he looks in a mirror, and you know who will win before the opening credits are even finished.


3. No emotional connection. The only person I felt even a vague emotional connection with throughout the entire movie was Neumann. Yes, THAT Neumanna. From Seinfeld. That says how poor the movie was. No matter how many 'good men' died, or the pain they left behind, only Neumann got my sympathy.