The Punisher '04 - Just Off The Mark - That Bad Media

Episode Transcript
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(00:30):
Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome back toNot That Bad a Movie Podcast. This
is our Punisher special. If youwant to see our thoughts on The Punisher
eighty nine, that's already been done. If you're watching this, go watch
that if you haven't. But fornow, we're talking about The Punisher from
two thousand and four and this isgonna be a blast. Now, just
to get into the introductions here,my name is Connor aka Clown Vigilante,

(00:54):
the Funnisher, and I'm here withmy illustrious co host. No, that's
not Frank Castle undercover as an armsdealer. It's mister Gabe. Tye Gabe.
How you doing today, buddy?Actually I'm otto Kriegler for today.
I'm going to your under goodness likea Punisher himself, the famous undercover agent.

(01:17):
There's as much a master of disguiseas he is with with weaponry.
Yeah, I'm he's today, them A S. T. E.
R of disguise. He's right infront of your eyes. I'm doing fine
today. In fact, fun fact, people think that this is the Thomas
Jane version. It's actually the DanaCarrey version. They want like Thomas Chain
for some reason. Oh my God, Yeah, it's uh, it's man.

(01:41):
Oh man, this is gonna bea weird conversation today. I think,
uh, this is gonna be strange, man like. Like we said
at the intro, this is ThePunisher two thousand and four, two point
nine on Letterbox, the Wapping twentynine percent on Rotten Tomatoes. This will
be fun. Before we get toodeep into this, I do want to
bring up we we we decided tomove this to a special because all Punisher

(02:01):
films that have been made that havebeen made so far, all major Punisher
movies, are within the realm ofthe show, so we decided to cover
them all. But before that,this was your selection. So I want
to ask you kind of like whatwent into picking it for you? Obviously
we transitioned it to a special,but do you have some background for this

(02:22):
film that you wanted to cover beforewe started talking about our stuff. Yeah,
you know, when you're a kidinto comic books, the Punisher is
the as a character is like theequivalent of an R rated movie. You
know, he was darker than everybody. He was lethal. My dad didn't
want me reading Punish your comic books, so naturally, you know that's the

(02:43):
Forbidden Fruit of Marvel Comics. Yeah, this is a movie, the Thomas
Jane version. I waited a longtime to see it, and I wasn't
met with the reaction that everybody elseseems to have around this movie. I'll
get into my history in my comickid like relationship with the Punisher character,
but my reaction to this movie isprobably based around the fact that I just

(03:09):
have a different relationship with that characterand that property than a lot of people
do. I think people take thePunisher very seriously as a comic book character,
especially the types of people who puthis skull logo on the back of
their trucks and even some police officerswho put the lapel on their kevlar vests.

(03:30):
I'm from Texas, so the siteof the cops waiting outside Uvaldi with
Punisher logos on them is just oneof those like instantly iconic images, like
iconic in the worst way, Soreally really weird relationship with that character and
all the iconography that comes with him. So that being said, I was

(03:52):
very open to the subversions and justall around different take that this movie had
in store. This movie and blowme away then, and it doesn't blow
me away now. But when Idiscovered that there's a lot of Punisher fans
that are deeply unhappy with this movie, I thought, you know, that's
why we have the show, soI could speak my piece and say why.

(04:13):
I walk away with a very differentfeeling regarding the two thousand and four
Punisher movie. Yes, and it'sgonna be very interesting to see what that
feeling is as we go through ourconversation here. This is a this is
a weird movie to discuss because it'sa weird movie overall. It's it's often
it's funny, like people remember theseold, these Punisher movies until the next

(04:41):
Punisher property comes out, you know, like for a long time. I
remember being a kid and hearing peopletalk about this movie a lot for probably
two years, and then after abouttwo years of talking about it, they
had a different Punisher movie to complainabout. And then after several years of
complaining about both that one and thisone a little bit, they forgot about

(05:01):
every Punisher thing that's ever been made. When John Burnenthal came out and in
the eyes of many fans, crushedit on Netflix, this was like that
was like the one Punisher property thatwas beloved by the fans. They hadn't
really reached that level of success beforethat, so it was sort of foreign
for any of us who were familiarwith the Punisher character. Myself, my

(05:26):
uncle bought me. I don't knowif you are familiar with this, but
when we were kids, there werethese Marvel Legends action figures made by toy
Biz, and they had these comicbooks in the back, so the characters
came with like these little sets andtheir little props and weapons or whatever,
and then there was a comic bookthat came with it. And the comic
book that I had was the Punisherwar Zone comic, which this sort of

(05:48):
has some inspiration taken from a littlebit here and there. This takes a
lot more inspiration though from the GarthEnnis line specifically as it does Welcome Back
Frank storyline that was that really rejuvenatedthe Punisher character because for a while there
was a role in the comics likethere, and they tried different things with

(06:09):
the Punisher, and there's one storylinewhere he goes to Hell and comes back
as you know, kind of likespawned, like enforcer. Starting in the
positives here, I want you tokind of get us started out with a
conversation here about something you like,because I'm curious to see what you do
take away from this movie having sucha differing opinion, a known differing opinion

(06:31):
from the audience who's on the otherside of that fence. I really like
Thomas Jane as Frank Castle Slash thePunisher. I really dig his performance in
this movie. I'm a fan ofThomas Jane overall. And you know,
the same kind of down to earth, quiet, little intense, that energy

(06:53):
that I like to see from him, and rolls from the mist in nineteen
twenty two he brings to Frank Castle. Now this is controversial because the Punisher
is typically a character that fans don'twant humanized, and that's kind of the
entire project here. That's why theygot Thomas Jane was to humanize him.
That's why this is an origin story. They want to show you what drove

(07:16):
Frank Castle to become a killer andto become a vigilante. You know,
you see the pain, you seethe burden that he carries. I think
Thomas Jane has to play basically twosides of this character. First, retired
FBI agent Frank Castle, who's lookingforward to settling down with his family finally,
and then you know the agent ofvengeance. But even in that second

(07:41):
part of it, even when he'son the prowl, even when he's out
for blood, he doesn't play itwith the same kind like The Punisher in
the comics is the most humorless characterwith rare exception, and I'm going to
say maybe the most charged thing.I'm going to say this whole pot what

(08:01):
Daniel Craig did for James Bond,I think Thomas Jane did for The Punisher
look to I mean, Thomas Janedidn't get the opportunity to carry on his
interpretation through a franchise. We getto see what he did for this one
movie with the material that he wasgiven. The material is flawed, we'll
get to that, but all thechoices he makes, the little smirk that

(08:22):
he does as he's torturing people,or the real exhaustion that he has when
he's fighting the Russian played by I'msure your favorite actor in this movie,
Kevin Nash No. I really likeall of it. And I admire the
audacity to look at a character likeThe Punisher and say, you know what,
this character has a soul and Idon't care if people are going to

(08:43):
be mad about this, I wantto explore that side of him. And
you know, it's funny like Idon't have Thomas Jane in the good section,
but I don't have him in thebad section because I have a real
love hate relationship with him in thismovie. And even say, Thomas Jane,
man, it's like, there's justsomething really weird about this where he's

(09:05):
almost the perfect Punisher for this movie, but he goes so far against what
I would picture the Punisher to beon film. So there's there's this part
of me, and it's it's whyI have dialogue about a lot of actors
who are portraying characters that I knowvery well, you know, like a

(09:26):
Batman or a Superman, and yousee them and you're like, oh,
they're not like bad at the character. They might fit their movie really well,
but it's not what I want tosee. And and that was the
case for Thomas Jane in this movie. As as the Punisher, I think
his performance overall is fairly good.I think his scenes, the scenes that

(09:48):
he has where he's supposed to bevery brooding and punisher esque punisher y,
he does very well. In I'mNot a very brooding Punisher, which is
a I find so interesting. Well, and that's the thing that I think
I do kind of enjoy about thisis that they I respect them. It's
something I've said a lot in theshow. If you want to take something

(10:11):
that's established and make it your own, I'm gonna respect that and I'm going
to try to buy into it asmuch as I can. And I was
able to do that for a lotof this movie. There's just a few
moments where I wish we could havegotten more Punisher less, more of the
Punisher that I think of, andless of the Punisher we got in this

(10:33):
I think there could have been alittle bit better of a balance. That
being said, I do think thathe was the perfect casting choice for the
Punisher in this movie. Adaptations can'tbe all things to all people exactly.
You know, Sam Raimi wanted aspider Man that was very vulnerable, very
sensitive, had to true everyman qualityto him, and he cast Telby maguire

(10:56):
and Toby Maguire is perfect as thatinterpretation. And even Daniel Craig that comparison.
You know, there are people whodon't like Daniel Craig. They think
he's lacking in humor. They don'tthink he's handsome enough. And the cool
thing now is that we are sooversaturated with media about these people that you

(11:18):
don't have to just settle for oneportrayal. If you don't like Thomas Jane,
I bet you'll like Ray Stevenson alot better. He's much more accurate
to the garth Ennis Punisher, especially, but Thomas Jane, for the revenge
tale that they are telling, Ifeel for the guy. I think he
the Punisher has always been lacking insomething for me, and that is he

(11:39):
never feels like an underdog. He'slike an all powerful badass. He never
runs out of AMMO, he neverruns out of people to shoot at.
And this is a punisher that hasto be more calculating, more scheming.
This Punisher feels a lot more like, I don't know, like a dark
man, you know, than hedoes any punish your character from the comics.

(12:00):
And that's just my personal taste.I diget. I will agree that
he is the perfect choice for castingin this and and he does help my
enjoyment of the movie, which whichI want to bring something up as a
positive and it's something that I doevery so often that I feel cheap doing.
But this time period, the earlytwo thousands, you either really have
to like nail the good part ofit or nail the bad part of it

(12:24):
for me to feel either which wayabout about the nostalgia factor of a movie,
and I think this does it ina good way. Man Like,
it just makes me. It remindsme of a simpler time, of of
happier times. You know, whenI could when I could listen to Drowning
Pool and not have to worry aboutpaying a mortgage, when I could throw

(12:45):
on some seither featuring Amy Lee anduh and just forget about the entire world.
Uh. It's just, man like, there's just something about this movie
that just has a feel to itfor me. I read a lot of
reviews talking about how like humorless uhand and just very how much of a
bummer this movie was. But eventhough it's fairly dark with its material,

(13:09):
I would say, especially considering youknow it's a punisher character, it just
makes me feel good to watch it. Man Like. It captures everything good
for me about that time period.I can I can just be transported back
to seeing commercials of this, watchingSpike TV as a kid, and it
just you know, there's just somethingabout that that I think it adds a

(13:33):
charm to the movie. For me, that's your go to pro for any
movie that we talk about that it'sfrom this era. Though no, it
is, and it's cheap, andI know it is. It's why I
added a few other things in thereso that I didn't just talk about this.
I usually leave my point here,and I do it a lot when
I don't have much to say aboutthe good section. I'm like, oh

(13:58):
no, no, that's but Iadded. But I added more this time
because I was able to add more, I wanted to make sure that I
highlighted it. But I also wantedto transition that to something that you brought
up a moment ago. Uh kindof. There's a few things that I
want to throw into this pro.There are some scenes in this that,
for me, the best way thatI can say is just they they really

(14:20):
these scenes kick major ass. Uh. There's there's three I wanted to highlight.
Uh. There's a scene that takesplace in like this diner. Uh
oh yeah, which which for me, man like that's like straight out of
a Quentin Tarantino movie. That's likeit's exactly what I thought of. Man,
this this dude walks in and he'sgot like nail polished on a bunch

(14:43):
of rings, and he's smoking thiscigarette and the weirdest way I've ever seen
anybody smoke a cigarette. He's likeswitching fingers like he's got it in between
his pinky, and I was like, what are you doing? And he
takes a guitar out and starts singinglike Johnny Cash and he got Assin right,
and he just sings this song thatjust it's like, like you're looking
at it, You're like, well, like you, it's a captivating scene,
and it's just it's for a momentYou're like, this is the most

(15:07):
tense that I felt in this entiremovie so far. It feels like it's
from a different movie. Even thoughthere's a lot of things I like about
this movie, it feels like it's, like you said, out of a
Quentin Tarantino movie circa late nineties.Yeah, sort of. The weird thing
about this movie, and the reasonit's weird, Duck, is because the
best things about it don't feel likethey belong here. That's very fair.

(15:31):
Yeah, I bet another scene thatyou're gonna highlight is the fight scene with
the Russian I already talked about that. That is I think what audiences remember
the most about this movie. Youknow, they remember it fondly because it
is so creative, it's so funny. I love the opera music playing in
the background. Oh dude, it'syou know Kevin Nash is you know Kevin

(15:52):
Nash really got stabbed Thomas j accidentallystabbed him? He did, He really
stabbed him, like, And that'sused because Kevin Nash just rolled with it,
yes, which is kind of amazing, right, Like to think about
the fact that, like he wassuch a pro that he was like,
oh, there is a knife inmy shoulder right now, and I'm just

(16:12):
gonna fucking roll with this because Idon't want to have to do it again.
I'm just gonna stab townas Change.What a fucking professional man. But
the thing about that scene is itdoesn't really feel like it belongs in this
movie. No. And here's thething, Like, I think that scene
kicks a lot of ass. Ithink it's an awesome scene. It's honestly,

(16:34):
it's why I knew this movie existed. Because the reason I saw this
so much, and the commercials wouldplay on Spike TV is is for two
reasons. One, Kevin Nash isin the movie, and then a part
of the soundtrack CD that came outfor this which is awesome by the way,
has another wrestler named Kane's theme songat the time, which they licensed

(16:56):
to put on their album. Ibelieve they used it in an extent version
of the movie. I don't know, but that caused a lot of commercials
to air during RAW when I wasa kid. So seeing Kevin Nash come
into the movie before he became astripper in the Magic Mike movies and just

(17:18):
he comes in and there are thingsI don't like about the scene, and
I have a complaint a little laterthat I want to bring up regarding some
of the things that I don't likeabout it, But as a whole,
it's it's pretty awesome. And Iwant to get your take on this next
scene here, because I think thefinal battle that takes place in this movie
between Frank Castle and all of thesegoons in John Travolta in his building and

(17:42):
just outside of it at the endfor me, was probably besides the diner
scene, being the best part ofthe movie. For me. This is
did you have some fond memories ofit. Oh yeah, I mean,
and it's funny. This is thescene that actually best capture is the punisher
essence. I bet a lot ofpeople wanted the whole movie to feel like

(18:03):
this scene. I think so,and you know, when it finally arrived
too little, too late. AndI understand that. You know, in
this being an origin movie, hedoesn't become the Punisher by minute thirty or
even like by the halfway point.He becomes the Punisher at the end,
and this is really the crystallization ofthat journey. You know, he is

(18:29):
fully prepared for that role. Anda lot of people accuse this movie of
being generic, but I think there'sa lot of flavor to this movie's interpretation
of Frank Castle that makes it Idon't know, that elevates it a little
bit, or at least makes itstand out. I love his little memo
and that he really approaches his roleof the Punishers as if as if he's

(18:52):
been deputized, you know, asif he has been anointed. You know,
it's not just vengeance, it's punishment. It's something a little bit more
detached in a way. Even thoughI'm sure he's taking a lot of like,
you know, personal satisfaction out ofit, but just in terms of
like how this was directed, howit was staged, from the second that

(19:15):
Champagne Bohndal goes off it causes thathuge explosion to when Frank Castle takes out
the most smug prick in the movieby making him do the dead weight lit
Oh Man, Yeah, and Idon't know. And this is like where
Thomas Jane and John Travolta really justcome into their own as the characters.

(19:36):
We'll talk about John Travolta. Butyeah, I'm gonna bounce that right back
to you. Man, I mean, not only do you like this scene,
well, I know you like thisscene, but does it stand awkwardly
in the movie for you or isthis like, yes, this is the
best conclusion for this for this movie. So a little bit of both,

(19:57):
honestly. Like it's one of thosethings where when you look at the movie
as a whole, there are afew scenes that stand out that feel,
like you said, like they're fromdifferent movies and it's not necessarily that this
is one of them. I mean, you could kind of see how it
would build to this, but itdid based on where the movie was going

(20:22):
even this rewatch that I the mostrecent rewatch that I had, it surprised
me a little bit more than Iexpected about how good it was. So
I'll say this, I think itfeels more from this movie and from this
story than the scene in the diner, which I also thought was incredible.

(20:45):
But there is still that sense oflike, Okay, this was the best
ending I think they could have gonewith, but it almost feels it feels
slightly out of place from where theywere going. There's one half of that
that's like it makes sense because theprogression of the story you could see it
get here. But the like,the one thing for me that I think

(21:07):
stands out is the violence. There'ssomething I'll say about the violence a little
bit later throughout the movie up untilthis point, but this is like the
moment where like it gets like realman, like he stabs this dude's hand
into his own leg and then sticksanother knife through like underneath his chin into
his mouth. It's a good effecttoo, it's a very good effect,

(21:27):
but it's just it takes this veryit takes brutal turn, where in the
rest of the movie there was therewas a different sense to the violence.
It felt like it escalated a little, it jumped too far. It wasn't
too too much violence, it don'tget me wrong, but it felt like
too far of a jump from theviolence we had seen so far, and

(21:48):
that's what sort of separates it fromthe progression of the story that I had
seen. I know, I meanthere. I mean, it's it's interesting
that this is seen as less violentthan war Zone, because I think Warzone
really revels in that grindhouse esthetic andI think really like things of itself very

(22:12):
highly as like a tribute to violence. This movie really uses violence in the
way that our favorite director of thisprogram, Rob Zombie, would use violence.
I mean, it is ugly andit makes you cringe. So while
I'm not sure if I agree thatthe violence is out of place compared to

(22:33):
the rest of the movie, becausethe thing is the violence that does occur,
we don't enjoy it. We don'tget a chance to enjoy it.
This is the closest we get toenjoy it because we see Frank Castle taking
out his enemies. But I thinkof when Ben Foster gets all of his
piercings taken out, probably one ofthe most viscerally effective moments of the scene,
even if the dialogue is cringe,which is something that I'm going to

(22:57):
expand on and just a little bithere. Yeah yeah, Well, well
why don't you while we're still here, what else can you take away from
this movie in a positive way?Well, let me tell you something that
is so bold to me about thismovie, the idea of taking the death
of Frank Castle's family and turning thatinto an action scene in and of itself

(23:18):
one of the more elaborate and highoctane scenes, honestly because it's a whole
massacre, and it's different than inthe comics, because the story typically goes
that Frank Castle's wife and two kidswere killed at Central Park after witnessing a
mob execution. Here it's his entirefamily, and then he has to try

(23:45):
and fail to save his wife andchild. And something about seeing him fight
to try and save them and thenultimately failing, to me makes this the
most heart breaking in like version ofhis origin that I've ever seen or witnessed,

(24:06):
even compared to the John Burnhal versionof The Punisher, where you know
it's handled very well because it's mostlydone through you don't see it. I
don't even know if you see aflashback. It's really just all spoken of
and that's tasteful, I think so. But yeah, but something about Thomas
Jane running up to see their bodies, you know, after after watching his

(24:29):
entire family get mowed down, buthe doesn't just it's not just misery,
you know, it's it's visceral.I don't want to call it exciting.
But that choice is something that didnot work for a lot of people in
this movie, and it totally landedfor me. I thought it was audacious,
so I like it too. Ido think I wish it could we

(24:55):
could have had a little bit ina movie that, truthfully, for a
movie of this kind, is solong, it I wish we could have
had a little bit more time tolet it sink in how heartbreaking that moment
was where he finds his wife andchild, because the scene itself is,
you know, we see the carapproaching them, we see them go down,

(25:17):
we don't see them get hit oranything, and then we see him
run up and he only gets toreally like revel in the fact that his
wife and child have passed away andand sort of let that sink into himself
for a couple of seconds before thebad guy's car appears and he gets up
and tries to kill them. Wedon't see a whole lot of like,

(25:38):
you know, like sort of whatI'm thinking of here is like just like
almost an emotional version of like theend of Scarface is what I'm kind of
wanting, you know, where hegets up and he's like, you know,
breaking down, covered in tears,face is red, and he's he's
shooting and screaming. That's kind ofwhat I wanted to see. I wish
we could have gotten a little bitmore of that emotional side of it,

(26:00):
But I do think that as faras the story goes, it's the in
my opinion, the better way tohandle it. I do think it.
I saw a complaint in one ofthe reviews that I read about it,
feeling a little bit of like,oh, yeah, well, we're gonna
make it mean so much more becausenot only are we gonna make him be

(26:22):
able to potentially stop his wife andchild from dying, but he can't do
it, We're gonna kill his wholefamily. Like it it does. I
get that sense a little bit oflike, how can we make this more
heartbreaking? Well, let's let's killhis wife and son. But he has
like a he tries to stop it. Well, yeah, we need a
little bit more. How about hiswhole family? Okay, that makes sense,

(26:44):
but it makes it all the moretragic, and it makes you it
makes you feel more sympathetic for thepunisher and some of the things that he
does later in the movie. Imean, let's not sugarcoat the fact.
Then after taking down John Travolta,he's laying dying on the floor, he
literally says the words I made youkill your best friend and then throws the

(27:06):
earring down and goes, I madeyou kill your wife. That's dark as
shit. Man. This is likeone of those things where you're like,
oh and then and then you knowwhen Jon Rivolta responds b saying, well,
you killed my son, and thenthe bungeon goes off in the building
killing the other Thomas Jra just says, and probably his best line delivery of
the movie. He just says,both of them, Yeah, yeah,

(27:26):
there's something. Yeah, I meanit is okay. There's a try hard
energy to this movie. No doubtit was produced by try Hard Studios.
Otherwise no Gate. You know,it's funny. I just got done a
plung do a job at lions Gate. So that's why this is behind a

(27:48):
paywall. No, oh my god, oh yeah, this is behind a
paywall. I don't know if thisis gonna get edited out, so I'm
not gonna say my thoughts on lionsGames. I'm just gonna end it there.
Oh my god. I'm very thankfulnow, listen, I'm very thankful
lions Gate released released the movie thatstarted at all for our boy Rob Zombie's

(28:08):
career. They released a House ofa thousand corpses when Universe doesn't want to
touch it. So for that andthat alone, I will say Lionsgate gets
a thumbs up for me, nomatter the conversations that made me think otherwise.
Hey, I mean, the reasonthey take this business. I love

(28:29):
a lot of their movies, butyeah, it's sort of like, you
know, they are try hard studiosand sometimes their efforts pay off and sometimes
they don't. And this is amovie where, you know, I guess
it didn't pay off for people.I mean, the movie doesn't help itself
with the weird tone, and Iguess we should probably just I mean,
I have other nice things to say, but I have so many negatives that

(28:55):
I haven't even touched yet and Iknow what people are here for. Well,
I do want to bring one thingup before we transition, And I
just wanted to say because I wantedto throw one extra thing in there for
being cheap with the with the nostalgiapop, and I just want to say,
like, for a movie that islike this, it has a really
surprisingly competent story, like the wayit unfolds of like Frank Castle's not just

(29:21):
this like I'm gonna go kill everybodyand I'm gonna do this, Like he
has more thought that he puts intoit this time. He comes up with
these elaborate plans and these elaborate schemesand the way that they're written into the
movie. At first, you're like, what the fuck is going on?
Like why is why are we watchingthis guy like sneak away and be gay
like that? And then they useit, and they actually use it in

(29:42):
a way that's clever for the story, and they do it in a way
that ends up paying off in theend. And when everything paid off,
I was like, holy shit,they actually delivered on that. They actually
set things up, they told thestory of how they got there competently,
and then they pay eat it off. There's there's not a lot of movies
in this genre around this time periodthat I feel do that, but they

(30:07):
did it in this and it wasshocking to me rewatching it this time,
paying more folks, you know,giving more focus and paying more attention to
the story, how competent. Itwas really solid that they threw that stuff
in there. They did not needto. They didn't need to. In
fact, they themselves got punished forit. They did pished by fans,

(30:29):
yes, because that's something that peoplealso don't like. You know, The
Punisher kind of reminds me of Jason. Jason Vorhees because when the Marcus Neesspell
Friday the thirteenth reboot had this Jasonthat was setting up traps and was clearly
smarter than other Jason's, or atleast he was more resourceful, more tactful.
A lot of fans just wanted theyou know, regular old Jason,

(30:52):
you know MACHETI swinging Jason right,And a lot of people have the same
scorn for this version, like theydon't want to see the Punisher uses handy
dandy fire hydrant to you know,keep a parking space open or whatever the
hell he was doing there and followpeople around with a camera. They want
guns of blazing, and you know, they got that in the next movie,

(31:17):
and ironically they don't like that movieeither, which we'll get into.
So that's the other spot where I'mlike, yes, I see that it's
different, but does that mean it'sbad. Is they're really a problem with
having a version of the Punisher thatis a bit more cunning, a bit
more resourceful. I mean, youdo have some big action scenes. He

(31:38):
is one of the more you know, like capable marksman. You know,
as far as Punisher interpretations go,he's certainly an upgrade from dolf in that
in that area. So it's justa bit of a shame for me that
a lot of the thought that theyput into this version of the character backfired

(32:02):
and actually ended up being something thathurt the movie for people. Because I
gotta tell you, if if thismovie was just about Frank Castle picking up
a gun and you know, shootingevery one of John Travolta's henchmen in the
face before you know, blowing himup at the end, this movie would

(32:22):
be just as generic as people accuseit of being. And that's the irony.
Yes, I think it isn't itironic that that that's the way that
it goes. We're gonna get alittle bit more into the irony of things
when we talk about the next moviein the franchise, when we talk about
fan response. For now, though, I think it's about that time that

(32:44):
we talk about the things that wedon't like about this movie, before we
before we try to punish the criticsof this movie talking about the things that
they don't like. Maybe, Idon't know, Remember it's not vengeance.
Yeah, if we we might agreewith him. I don't know. We'll
see when we get there. Butfor now, let's talk about the things

(33:07):
that we don't like. And I'dlike you to start us off here with
this being a movie that you doenjoy. Twist a knife in and let
us know something that you don't like. Two hours and how many minutes this
movie? This movie, it reallyfeels like two movies. Yeah, oh

(33:28):
yeah. The frank Castle civilian lifeup to the tragedy is its own section.
And it's funny because that's like trueof a lot of superhero origin movies
that I love, Like Richard DonnerSuperman. He literally doesn't become supermantal halfway
into that movie, and you know, surprise, surprise, that's something that

(33:49):
a lot of people in heins Ireally don't like about that movie. And
the problem is that, unlike witha Superman, you know, Frank Castle's
life before he becomes Punish. Sure, at least the way they present it
here, it's just not interesting enough. You know, his relationship with his
family's pretty generic, okay, attimes cringe worthy putting it lightly, yea,

(34:14):
even though his son is nice enoughto pick out his costume for him,
It's just it's still not a superduper compelling or anything. I do
like the fact that they got RoyScheider, of all people, to play
his father. I think that there'ssome good casting here for sure, But

(34:34):
either we're you know, following theCastles or the Saints, and in either
case, less so for the Saints, because they're so bizarre to me that
I think that there's a lot ofentertainment value there, but I am feeling
the length. And then after hebecomes the Punisher, half of it is
like this really cool mission of vengeance, and then half of it is this

(34:59):
sitcom called a Waitress h a tattooartist and stereotypical Italian man guest starring Frank
Castle, and I've very complicated feelingsabout that section of the movie, but
it does not help the movie's overalltone. Like it's a long movie for

(35:22):
what it is, and it seemsto shift gears a lot, which makes
you feel the length even more.I think, Okay, I didn't expect
this. I didn't expect this tohappen, but I I I want to
say real quick, So I leftsomething out of the good section for me,

(35:45):
and I did it because I waslike, I think we've talked enough
about the good stuff. But man, I I I like those characters in
that in that in that apartment withthem. I don't hate them. I
actually like them quite a bit,you know, I like I like Joan.
I think she's a little I know, she's more of a plot device

(36:07):
than a character, you know,somebody to kind of be an outer dialogue
of the things that the character needsto hear. And I can respect that,
but I think it's nice to givethat character a backstory that makes sense
for the things that she's saying,you know, like she's not just like,

(36:27):
oh, here's some suburban housewife whomeets him and then it's like all
of a sudden giving this knowledge aboutliving a hard life and forgetting memories.
I like Dave a lot, ourPierce, our pierced man, but by
the great Ben Foster. Yeah,really cool to see him in this movie
for sure. Yeah, Yeah,I like him a lot. I like
I like Bumpoo is the breaking pointhe goes too far from me. I

(36:52):
understand why he uh. I thinkhere's the thing, man, Like,
I think the problem that I havewith these characters is that we just see
a little bit too much of them. I think if we would have seen
a little bit less of them,it would have helped the tone of the
movie a lot, which is somethingthat I do have a problem with.
I think the tone is inconsistent.But I don't want to get to there

(37:14):
yet because we may see that comeup a little later. That being said,
you know the things, it's funnybecause like we got too much of
the characters, but of these ofthese side characters. But everything that we
got of them, like, Ienjoyed it, you know what I mean.
Like it was weird. I'm like, we're spending too much time with
these people. But I'm not hatingthe time that we're spending. It's not

(37:36):
benefiting the movie, but it's benefitingthe scene that I'm watching right now.
It's very weird how that happened,Like I don't know many movies that have
done that, where like, hey, I'm having like a decent time watching
the scene, but it does nothelp the film. And I think spending
as much time with these guys aswe do, at least Bumpo, I

(37:58):
think we spent a little too muchtime with Bumpo. I think Ben is
somebody I think we should have spentmore time with uh than Joan. I
think Ben, Ben should have beena more important character, because this is
like a guy we're supposed to sympathizewith. At one point, I think
Ben and j well Ben Foster,Yeah, Ben. Rebecca wrote Rebecca,

(38:22):
is it Romaine mistake? I'm gonnacall her a mistake? Yeah, go
for it, yeah, Rebecca.Yeah, I don't know how to pronounce
that, I am I j Nyeah, not even gonna try it.
Yeah. So I mean she wasliterally playing mistake at this point. You

(38:42):
know, this is right after XMen two. Now here's where I'm going
to defend it. And this iswhere I get into just like some like
really complicated feelings about this movie.I mean, story wise, these characters
are actually very important because they're thepeople that make him rediscover his humanity.
I mean, after what Frank Castlewent through, he's not just looking out

(39:04):
for vengeance. I mean he alsoplans to kill himself and he you know,
drinks from himself to sleep every night, which is a big reason why
people call this movie a bummer.But I just think that's just baggage you
have to take on if you're goingto make a Punisher movie, frankly,
unless you skip all that over allof that over to make you know your

(39:25):
generic action movie, which again peoplesay this is a generic action movie,
So there's a real contradiction there forme. No, especially Rebecca Slash mystique,
because she is really pushing for arelationship with Frank and she tricks him
into sitting down to have dinner withthem in one of honestly my favorite scenes,

(39:47):
at least regarding that subplot. Andaside from some you know, kind
of cringey jokes from Bumpo, Ilove that. I just want to say
how ridiculous it is how many timeswe've said bumpo. How many times the
movie says bumpo. Man nobody shouldbe saying bumpo and the pump nobody should
be saying bumpo. It's a bad, bad choice. But it's also like

(40:09):
she brings out a really interesting sideof Thomas Jane's performance, and this is
really what made me realize that he'sa very Daniel Craig esque presence here,
because at the end of Casino Royale, he famously says, I don't care
about Vesper, you know, thebitch is dead, very chilling line,
and we know that he doesn't meanit, but that's to show just how

(40:30):
hardened he's become. And Frank Castlehas a similar thing. Rebecca Slash mystique
you know, says that she's sorryabout his family and he's like, what,
I'm over it because he you know, we see just how not over
it he is and to watch himlike force people away is part of the

(40:50):
heartbreak, but we do get tosee it's funny. Like we're in the
negative section and here I am praisingthe movie again, but I think,
I think this is something we canboth agree on. And I'm very happy
to actually hear you come out anddefend it even before I did, because
that is definitely something people do notfuck with about this movie. Well,
let's get back to uh, tothe negatives. Then let's let's bring this

(41:13):
back down to the bummers. Iwant to I want to bring up something
that you touched on a little bit, that I touched on a little bit.
I don't want to talk about ithere specifically. Uh. And it's
the dialogue in this movie. Man, we're ones that like a dialogue has
come up a few times for me, and we both have this this dialogue
between ourselves where we talk about thatbeing a complaint that sometimes is overused because

(41:37):
you sort of have to know whatyou expect going into certain movies, like
you can't be like, Oh,Batman and Robin is considered one of the
worst movies of all time. Iexpect, I expect Citizen Kane levels of
dialogue. You're not gonna get it. It's really dumb to watch movies that
way. But it's not dumb toexpect movies not to make you cringe.

(41:59):
And this is not the type ofmovie that you'd really expect that from.
But there are many moments. Theone that screams out to me is there's
a moment where he's with his wifeon on the beach that just is so
so glaringly bad. Oh what's thatline from John Travolta. He's with Will

(42:19):
Patton in his office and he's like, your job is to make castle dead
or something. Now, all ofJoon Revolta's lines are paper on paper,
are terrible, but John de Voltamakes them the best dialogue you've ever heard,
in the best way or in theworst way, in the way.

(42:40):
I don't know how you feel.We'll get into it, because he's the
he's the elephant in the room.He's the scientist, the scientologist in the
room. When it comes, heis he is, and we'll and we'll
get to him. But I do, I do want to get your perspective
on the dialogue in this, becausethat's not often a complaint you have in
movies, even movies where I've broughtthis up as a complaint of mind.

(43:04):
It's not usually something that you havea huge problem with. You'll have issues
with some lines here and there.But to hear you bring it up earlier
kind of got me excited because Iwas like, Wow, is he gonna
is he gonna agree with me here? So let's hear it. I really
don't like Edgelord dialogue. I don'tlike. Something that really works for me
about the Saw movies is that JackSaw, even as he's doing these awful

(43:30):
things to people, never presents himselfas a tough guy. He presents himself
as something you know of. Youknow, he's a bit philosophical, he's
a bit otherworldly. Really cool contrastseeing Quentin Glass his name is pull out
some piercings from Ben Foster's face andsay today you're gonna learn all about pain.

(43:52):
It's to me, it's tired,it's it is the spot where the
movie starts taking lessons from every othergeneric action movie that's ever been made.
You know, that's something out ofa Steven Sagall movie. You know,
Stephen Sigall is the punisher. Youknow, that's basically that was basically Stephen
Sagall's routine for a while. Sothank god we've never got Steven Sagall is

(44:15):
the punisher. Oh my god,what do you tell Ponytail? I don't
think so. Oh no, absolutelynot, absolutely not. And that's not
to say there's not a good StephenSigall movie, but there's not a great
Stephen Sagall movie. He's never goodin them. No, you take take
no, I will no, Ino, I completely agree with you.
I mean, he's I don't thinkhe's ever been a good actor. When

(44:37):
I was a kid, I washook line and sinker into Steven Sagall.
I have a ton of his movieson DVD because there was a period of
like my teenage years where I waslike, Yeah, Stephen Sigall is best.
And then I realized what acting was, and I realized that that he
does not do it, and howmuch of it. By the way,
uh, this is behind a paywall. I don't care if this ever comes

(44:57):
out. How much of an absolutepiece of shit he is also does not
help the enjoyment of his movies.Fuck Steven Sigal and everything he stands for.
But yeah, it's it's kind ofamazing to look at this movie and
some of the choices that they madewith the dialogue, even with characters that
I think, like Will Patten's nota bad actor at all, and I

(45:19):
think he knows there's no bad actorin this movie. No, and he
does like Will Patton does pretty wellthroughout the film, like in the scenes
where he's not given something that's ridiculous, but that's far from the only line
in this that he himself has thatI was just kind of like, all
right, come on, like,do we really need to do this now?
He has also one of my favoritelines of dialogue, which is when

(45:42):
he's being stabbed to death and hejust keeps saying, why you killing me?
Why you kill me? It's likehe doesn't understand why it's happening,
which really helps the gravity of it. Later, when josh O Bolza learns
why he killed him was really notan Every death is well handled to me
in this movie, like every deathmeans agreeing and it has way to it,
you know, the death that weget to see of course, right,

(46:02):
no, man, But if we'retalking screenplay, if we're talking screenwriting,
uh, you know this is youknow, this is the guy who
helped write arm Again. So Iwasn't expecting like, like a tight,
tight plot as clever as something's aboutit are, you know. I'm like,
some conveniences can be forgiven. ButFrank Castle being saved by a voodoo

(46:25):
man of voodoo witch doctor god outthere in the Caribbeans who just like washes
ashore just in time to save FrankCastle from being exploded, not just lit
on fire. He was exploded.Here's here's some ship that makes no sense
to me. Right, this guy'ssupposed to be a voodoo witch doctor the

(46:47):
evil magic of voodoo. And thelast thing he says to Frank is let
God be with you to which andthat line is only there so Frank could
say, God's gonna's gonna sit thisone out. So it was just like,
man, it was like, itwas like, here's this here.

(47:08):
They're not even gonna like doctor deaththis thing, right, Like they're just
gonna make him the most useless plotpoint, the most lazy treatment of how
Frank Castle could survive this in aweird way. They Halloween five to this.
Oh sure, I mean Halloween fivedidn't invent this. I mean the

(47:30):
the the bystander who has either somekind of like you know, a doctoral
not like medical knowledge, or someotherworldly Mama Juju knowledge. It's it's a
time under tradition in schlock like this. Now, this movie definitely doesn't think
of itself as schlock. It wantsto be better than schlock. But I

(47:53):
guess that they didn't want to takethe time to come up with a better
explanation for how Frank Castle survived.And that's a shame to me, because
that is that's a pretty important detail, Like that's something that like really hard
to go with the gritty tone ofthis movie when that is that is part

(48:15):
of the ingredients, that's part ofyour core ingredients. Is this witch doctor?
No, it it's you know,it's It's one of those things that
when you have a movie that hassomething that's that important, you can't fuck
it up. Like I say,they Halloween fived it because they were just

(48:35):
laziest shit. And it's one ofmy biggest problems with Halloween five and movie
that I love. By the way, but first episode of the Poast,
the first episode of the show,go back and listen if you haven't,
maybe don't. I don't know.We were a little new, but a
little it was the first episode,so maybe we'll have to revisit that sometime
in the future at wink wink.But no, in all seriousness, that

(48:57):
was very thin anyways. Yeah,no, like I say, they Halloween
fived it. But what I'm whatI'm trying to say with that is that
they had something that was relatively importantto the character, which in this case,
I think it's much more important thanwith Michael Myers Michael Myers can just
continue to show up and the fansare gonna be happy with that. They're
people were upset, don't get mewrong, but you know, at the

(49:17):
end of the day, they justwant Michael Myers to come back and kill
some people. When people don't reallycare. How right, they don't care
as much. But one of thosethat like, you really should have had
a solid No, you don't evenneed an explanation, just give us something,
and they gave us nothing. Theygave us laziness and just bad.
Let me, let me, letme give an example. Okay of Rob

(49:44):
Zomies Halloween two. Rob'smies Halloween two. Okay, at the end of the
first movie he was shot in thehead, and in the second movie he
just gets back up. And Iwas fine with that. I was beyond
fine with that. Dude. It'sweird. It's like, either either give
us an explanation that's more than throwinga dart at a dartboard, or just

(50:07):
don't fucking explain it at all.And either way you're gonna fucking your it's
gonna pay off. But you can'tbe lazy. If you're gonna be lazy,
just don't fucking come up with something. Don't just be like a voodoo
guy, a voodoo guy in PuertoRico, a voodoo guy who speaks perfect

(50:29):
English, voodoo witch doctor in PuertoRico. It makes something, It makes
no sense, it's dumb, andI just wish it wasn't there. I
I don't know, man, it'sin a story that's like so tight in
certain parts, way tighter than itneeds to be in a movie like this.

(50:50):
This stands out as a glaring issuewith the movie, and it's it's
like so short too, but it'ssuch an important factor. How does this
guy live through this to come back? And Well, it's one of those
things. It's one of those thingsthat people will always make fun of this
movie for it. I mean,it's really something that left an impression on
people as short as it is,because it's so profoundly stupid. It's like

(51:14):
they went out of their way tobe stupid. No. I mean,
there's a line from Tropic Thunder that'scoming to mind, but I don't want
to say it, so I'm notgoing to. Uh, But what I
am going to say is I wantto I want to bring something up that
I know you're not going to agree. With we won't spend too much time
on it. Most of my thoughtson the bad stuff I want to save

(51:34):
because I do think some of mythoughts line up with what the audience thinks.
But there is something that I dohave a complaint about that I didn't
see brought up in a lot ofthings. And maybe it's just me,
but earlier I mentioned the violence seemingto take a leap up in the end
of the movie. And it's notbecause I don't think the movie's violent leading
up to that. But oh,you're not gonna agree with this at all.

(51:59):
I think the violent is brutal,but it's not the right kind of
brutal for me. Some of itfeels like really over the top and sort
of cartoonish, you know, likewhen Kevin Nash gets his face burned,
or when he like hits the guyin the head with the slicer and and
it just makes this like sound effect. It just felt more like it like,

(52:19):
it felt less like The Punisher andmore like itchy and scratchy. And
I was like, oh, itdidn't go that far. It felt it
felt, I mean, more likea cartoon than it did a live action
Punisher movie. And I didn't appreciatethat about those scenes, that that is
something that contributes to the tone.For me, I am going soft in
this movie because war Zone is somuch more egregious in this area. War

(52:43):
Zone is like an R rated cartoon, you know, I would say so.
I would say so with CGI.That wasn't good then and is certainly
not good now. Spoiler alerts frommy thought on Punish your war Zone.
So Punisher war Zone is gonna bea fun episode, then that's gonna be.
I'm not sure if I'm going tobe sober for that episode. I'm

(53:04):
not sure if anybody was. I'mnot sure if anybody was sober when they
made that movie. So I don'tknow why I have to be sober as
I talked about it. No,no, no, I can't. Lexi
Alexander, do not come after meon Twitter? Please? Is she for
that? Not? Well, she'sknown for complaining about the reception that her
movie got. Okay, okay,I mean some people take it differently than

(53:28):
others. I'm not gonna you know, directors do not whine on Twitter.
It's just it's just one of themost depressing things for me is somebody who
wants to be a director like I, And you know, I just got
to say that watching a director whoI'm sure was paid very well for their
services and you know, produced amovie of very questionable quality and then and

(53:50):
then not have a you know,a huge career after that. I don't
know. I see them as gettingon opportunity that most people would kill for
it, and I don't really wantto see them wind about it on Twitter,
of all places. I want toI want to say that to every
fucking famous person, Like when youhave enough time to go and just and
just and reply to people who don'tlike you, it's just it just feels

(54:10):
more sad than anything. And it'snot that you can't ever reply to people
who are shitting on you online.It just feels like when you do it
so often that you're known for it, it's kind of like, eh,
you know, like I'm not surprisedyou just don't call. Yeah, I'm
not surprised when Jake Paul does it. I guess I think of directors as
being very like I think of itas almost like a mythic thing maybe,

(54:31):
or like an elevated position, likeyou're an artist, like you're you're an
artist with authority so thing man.Yeah, it's like eat the station.
I guess there's a few things thatI like put into that, like influencers,
like okay, like they're already that'show they come up, like whatever
they want to do whatever, LikeI expect that from them. But like

(54:52):
even like actors and directors and prowrestlers or professional athletes like basketball players,
Like, if you're spending all allof your time outside of your profession on
Twitter, replying to people or complainingabout the hate that you get, like,
how much time do you have?I don't know. Well, you
don't see Jonathan Hensley complaining on Twitter. I'm not sure if he has a

(55:15):
Twitter. I think our Punisher warZone episode is going to be a very
interesting conversation just based off of someof the things you said so far.
I am very excited for that.But for now, we are talking about
The Punisher from two thousand and four, and I want to ask you if
you have any glaring issues that youwanted to cover before we kind of just
talked about some of the things thatmaybe didn't flow too well for a grand

(55:37):
audience as opposed to just our pointof view what you're saying. Do I
have any problems that we're problems forme specifically, or something I can see
the audience is with you specifically.I want to bring up a couple of
things for complaints the other way,but yeah, specifically for you while we're
still here, what are we lookingat? I mean, God, damn

(55:58):
it, just The Punisher is aokay, Okay, I told this to
you off record, and now it'sgoing on record. Oh no. Yeah.
People accuse this of being a genericmovie, and my response to them
is the Punisher is a generic character. I think this movie works really hard
to to address that problem. ButI just want people to face the music

(56:25):
and say, chances are, ifyou're reading or watching a story about a
man who calls himself the Punisher,it is going to be cheesy, it's
going to be tryhard, it's gonnabe edgy, and it might be humorless.
And this movie carries a lot ofthe baggage from the Punisher property.
And now Connor won't look me inthe eyes because of what I dared to

(56:50):
say. But it's true. It'strue. If anything, I like this.
I mean, you asked me toname a problem I have with the
movie, and I totally misunderstod theassignment. But I think I think what
I'm trying to say is this movieobviously carries a lot of the things I
don't like about the Punisher character,although he doesn't come across as that kind

(57:12):
of like right wing extremism that I'vecome to associate with the character. You
know, it's not it's not ThomasJane's fault that fucking shittheads across this country
put the skull logo on their truckand there's yeah, I mean, without
getting too much into it, right, it's one of those things that any

(57:34):
Punisher adaptation will have to deal withfor me, and this movie tries,
but it doesn't seed in shedding thereally lame qualities that I just associate with
this character. That's where the baddialogue comes in for me. That's where
the gratuitous violence comes in for me. That's where like almost every part of
my problem with this movie probably canbe traced back to the director wanting to

(57:59):
appeal to Punish fans. I justwant to say, I do not endorse
anything my co host said. Thoseare his thoughts and his thoughts alone.
No, I'm in all seriousness.Wow, No, no, no,
I see I'll say this, like, I don't have the same problems with
the Punisher character. I think theissue that I have is that I think

(58:24):
it's really hard when adapting a characterlike The Punisher or even like Blade to
an extent, like Blade is kindof an anomaly with the fact that those
first two movies are so beloved,because that's a character that's that's kind of
hard to get right. And Ithink anytime you have a comic book character,

(58:44):
you're never gonna make everybody happy.I mean, we cannot forget the
fact that they cast Michael Keaton,and thousands of letters, probably hundreds of
thousands of letters I can't remember theexact number flooded in about how awful the
casting was of Warner Brothers, andthen, you know, people had complaints
about casting of modern characters and Marvelmovies. But when you have a character

(59:07):
that's like so defined, like ThePunisher, that has a very unique style
that's more adult oriented, you getthis sort of cult status from the people
that are following. In a differentway, when you bring Captain America to

(59:30):
the big screen, you can kindof play with the costume a little bit,
and you can kind of play withsome of the things a little bit,
because it's a character that the storyis already there and defined enough that
you can use it and still doyour own thing with the character, which
I think the Marvel movie is pulledoff pretty well based on audience reaction,
but the Punisher is a little bitharder. I mean being a fan of

(59:52):
the Punisher comics and being a fan. I'm not like a diehard or anything,
but being a fan of the character. I would have liked to have
seen something. We talked about thisin Judge Dread, you know, like
the tone of the Dread movie Ithink would be perfect for the tone of
a Punisher movie, not Judge Dreadninety five. I'm talking Dread with Carl
Urban. Let me make that veryclear right now. But I don't necessarily

(01:00:20):
agree that he's a generic character,but I want to say I think he
is a very difficult character to adaptto the screen, and if you're gonna
do it, you either have todo what this director did, which is
try to make it different enough whilestill appealing to the characters. But I
think he tried to make everybody happy, and you just can't do that when
you try to make everybody happy nobody'shappy, which is why this movie is

(01:00:43):
not very highly regarded. I thinkmaybe why every Punisher movie is not highly
regarded, right because none of themhave I would argue that you have a
tale of three different kinds of moviesin this trilogy that are not related.
By the way, none of thesemovies have anything to do with each other.

(01:01:05):
But the first one felt like ithad an almost complete disregard for the
Punisher character. It was like,uh, you know, we'll take some
of the things we like about it, but we're really not focusing too much
on it. Where this one islike, we like some of the Punisher
stuff, but we also kind ofreally want to do our own things,
so let's just try to make everybodyhappy. And then Warzone was just like,

(01:01:28):
what if Rob Zombie snorted cocaine andmade Batman forever? Let's do that.
So it was like, so weird. Based on that description, you
would think I would like, punishyour Warzone more. It's so weird.
That's gonna be a really interesting conversation. Like I said, but for now,
while we're talking about this one,they did the Cardinal sin. You
can't try to make everybody happy.You can just try to make your movie,
and I think if they would havegone more with subtle Punisher notes,

(01:01:52):
I think this movie would have eventuallygot the cult following that it needed.
It just wouldn't have got it fromthe comic book fans. But instead of
doing that, you have a groupof people who really haven't come back to
reappraise it a little bit. Therating's gone up on the letterbox overtime,
but the comic book fans aren't reallycoming back to do the appraisal because they
didn't like that other stuff you putin there. So he's a really hard

(01:02:14):
character to adapt, and I'd besurprised if they tried it again anytime soon
in a solo movie. Look,okay, the Punisher stands out as a
character in the Marvel universe when he'sstanding next to Spider Man and Captain America.
Yeah, he's very distant or evenin the comics when he takes over
for Captain America. That is astoryline at one point where Frank Castle becomes

(01:02:37):
Captain America. Yay. I meanto a lot of Americans, he is
Captain America. Basically, he iswhat America represents. So that's yeah.
Some people said they didn't want politicson our podcast, and this is my
response. No oh, moving onfrom that topic. But the thing about
adapting him into a soul movie isthat we have vigilante movies, We have

(01:03:04):
revenge movies. We have a richhistory of those, and we have some
that have been done extremely well orat least very much. They are very
definitive takes, you know, likethe original Death Wish. The question is,
how do you make the Punisher withoutmaking it blend together with those other
movies. He stands out in Marvelcomics, but will he stand out in

(01:03:27):
the tradition of revenge vigilante movies.And that's the problem that this production team
is met with. I don't thinkthe Dolph movie gives a fuck at all
if it stands out or if itjust joins that pack. And I think
there is and yeah, there's areal effort that I find commendable here to

(01:03:50):
inject some humor, to take stylisticnods from great directors like Quentin Tarantino.
But does it add up? Doesit add up to some thing? Is
it more than some of its parts? Some things are borderline brilliant to me,
and other things fall flat on theirface. It's a victim of a

(01:04:11):
lot of circumstance to me, butthere are flashes of brilliance. And with
that being yeah, no, goahead, no no, I was just
gonna say, like one of thethings that if I could, if I
could transition us to some of thecomplaints there about this movie. Yes,
you talked about the too generic complaint, which is something that was very common
in a lot of the reviews thatI read. You know, this movie

(01:04:33):
is too generic to by the numbers. Even my wife when discussing it with
her after watching it, was like, there's a lot of stuff in this
that like a lot of other moviesdid and it's like, yeah, I
mean there's not a ton of originality, there's a lot of it. I
mean, there's a lot of stuffthat that this movie does by itself.
But yeah, I guess let's justkind of nail home how we think about

(01:04:56):
that complaint. What do we dowe agree at all with the audience or
I'm where do you stand as justthe kind of finals. So it's very
much the relationship I have with theHalloween community, I mean the Halloween film
community right right, because I staydiametrically opposed to some of the things they
want. Yes, this movie hasa problem with how generic ends up feeling

(01:05:19):
by the end. By the end, you don't feel like you've watched a
very distinct movie. You really feellike you've watched one of many, you
know, edgy action movies. Right. But the people who seem to complain
about that the most want want elementsthat would only make that problem worse.

(01:05:43):
I'm telling you, man, Imean, and this is validated to me
by the next movie, Shoot themUp Punisher movie with a stoic Frank Castle
who's fighting one dimensional villains. It'sjust I Punisher fans does to have something
that really represents there once. Butthat's not what I would want, Definitely

(01:06:03):
not in a cinematic movie. Likeif you have to translate this character to
a movie that he can carry,he has to have more dimension to him,
or at least he has to bepaired up with somebody that could carry
that weight. I guess that's thereason that Microchip is a character. And
it's funny they were going to bringMicrochip into this movie until Jonathan Hensley apparently

(01:06:27):
acts that because he just hates thatcharacter. And I understand that to a
point, because it is weird forthe Punisher to have a sidekick. He's
a lone wolf, So there isjust there is an inherent problem about adapting
this character. That's why we've seenthree failed attempts. It's very similar to
our discussion about the Hulk, right, because arguably there has been no successful

(01:06:54):
solo Hulk movie in the eyes offans, because the Hulk isn't a superhero,
but people want a superhero movie.Same thing about the Punisher. He
is not a superhero. He's nota guy I would want around in the
real world, if you know whatI mean. But that's not what people
want is some sort of like theywant some movie that explores you know,

(01:07:17):
violence, vengeance, and you know, finding your humanity. I have to
say that I'm skeptical that will geta great Punisher movie based on the expectations
that people have. Yeah, Ithink, especially around this time, they
just didn't really have They just didn'treally have it to deliver it. And

(01:07:44):
so while a lot of things cancome off as a generic and are to
a certain extent, a lot ofthat did come from a desire to satiate
what they thought a comic book movieaudience would want from a punk sure film.
So I can't really shit on themfor it. I think there are
some things that did feel a littlebit on the lazy side, But you

(01:08:08):
know, it's not a huge problemfor me if a movie's generic. I
mean, if it doesn't do anythingelse, then it's a problem, you
know, if it's just like abeat for beat version of whatever anything else
is. I can appreciate a lotof things. I like a lot of
bad movies. That's why I dothe show. But yeah, I would
say that that's like a neither herenor there for me. Just gonna throw
that in the middle. Don't reallycare about it too much. But one

(01:08:31):
thing that I will say I docare a lot about is the tone of
this movie. Audiences say it's inconsistent. I am going to just throw my
opinion in here before I throw itto you and just say I agree with
this. I think part of thatissue does come from something I do enjoy
in the other characters that we're introducedto in this apartment building that they're in.

(01:08:55):
But there's also this just weird sensethat I can't shake from this movie
that they're just People say it's humorless, but it's not over the topless,
you know what. I mean,it's not without it's over the top moments,
and it's moments that feel a littlebit more cartoonish, and even scenes
that I love, like the scenewith the Russian, are sort of they're

(01:09:18):
sort of sprinkled in little moments ofthis, like of this tone that doesn't
really match, Like they got thiscamera really close on his burned face where
he's screaming and the audio doesn't matchup, and you're just like, I
don't really know what's going now.So, yeah, the tone is inconsistent
for me, and it does createa pretty decent sized issue that I have

(01:09:41):
with the movie. And I'm curiousif you will fall into the same category
or if this is something that reallydoesn't bother you as much. Man,
I think I alluded to this becausethat's really what I mean when I say
the best things about this movie feellike they don't even fit. Yeah,
I mean, I've rewatched that fightscene with the Russian on YouTube many,
many times, far more times thanI'm really interested in watching this whole movie.

(01:10:01):
And that's because I wouldn't get thesame kind of thrill from watching the
movie that I would get from watchingthis one scene. It's a very isolated
scene that way, and I don'tknow, I feel like they were really
just trying everything. There was nosolid plan on how to adapt The Punisher,

(01:10:23):
so they wanted to try camp,they wanted to try gritty, they
wanted to try something like, youknow, hardcore violence, torture, porn.
Because Saw was the big hit forLionsgate and House of a Thousand Corpses
before this, so a lot ofthings that I felt like. This is
a movie definitely with identity crisis,and of course that hurts the movie.

(01:10:45):
I mean, I think for me, one of the most important things the
movie can have is a personality thatI can identify with or get attached to,
and this is something that the moviejust struggles for. It wants a
personality. I want to bring somethingto us now that we just can't avoid
talking about, nor should we,because he's the best thing about the movie.

(01:11:10):
You can't you can't avoid it.We can't avoid it, Sandy can't
avoid it. And that's because wegot to bring up the man, the
myth, the scientologist John Travolta,who plays our main bad guy in this
movie. Audiences did not like him, Critics did not like him. I

(01:11:34):
think some people enjoyed him for thereason that I enjoy him, but I
think some people do. I thinkthe popular consensus is that John Volta just
not working this movie. Yeah yeah. There was even a review I read
from a from a critic that saidthey were praising Thomas Jane's emotional back and

(01:11:55):
forth throughout the movie, but statedthat John Travolta was the worst thing about
it. I want to hear yourthoughts on this, because the way that
you've been talking about it so farseems like you very much disagree with this
complaint, and I just so badlywant to hear your opinion on this.

(01:12:15):
Yeah yeah, please enlighteness, Yeahyeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
I used to agree with the criticswhen I was dumb. Oh,
and then when I developed a senseof humor about the movies I watch,
I really appreciated his performance. Thereare two types of great villains, especially

(01:12:40):
for a comic book movie. There'sthe villain that is so complex or so
tragic or so thematic, just somebodythat is so well developed that they become
almost like a character from classic literature, like a Heath ledgeris Joker or Alfred

(01:13:00):
Molina as doctor Octopus. And thenyou have villains that you love to hate,
that you cannot wait to see gettaken down. And this movie has
become about the great satisfaction you willhave once this son of a bitch you
know meets their demise. John deVolta is a perfect example of the latter.

(01:13:23):
If you want your epic Punisher moviewhere he faces off against the ultimate
foe, that that is not whatthis movie is going for. And it
is a real choice that is made, like we are going to have the
opposite of the Punisher. They reallyreally nail this in my opinion, and

(01:13:45):
the comedic mileage they get out ofJohn Travolta's performance in this movie. It
just lands. It just it sings. Okay, it does better than land.
So John de Rivolta thinks his righthand man sleeping with his wife,
and his revenge plan is to gointo his house and start kicking around his

(01:14:08):
furniture while retailing this like this oldwives tale about Jim Bowie. This is
what you get John Travolta for.People forget just how wacky of a man
he is on screen. Like hisbest performances, I think embody this kind
of like really weird, strange butcommitted energy I don't know why he doesn't

(01:14:30):
get more praise for it, becauseI think every time you see a performance
like that by him, I've neverbeen disappointed. I've never been anything less
than thoroughly entertained. So I don'tknow. That's my spiel, that's my
defense of John Travolta here. Butyou're gonna have to You're gonna have to
announce your position. Okay, areyou with me or are you against me?

(01:14:51):
Connor, I understand everything he said, Yeah, but I don't agree.
Uh No, I don't. Idon't not agree with you. I
agree with what you said. Ifor me, though I don't I actually
agree with everything you said except foryour opinion on it. Your opinion on
it is that all of those thingsmake it good for him to be in

(01:15:14):
this. And my side of thatis, like everything about what you just
said makes him not work for me, I do want to see you know.
Here's the thing, right, it'sreally hard to come up with a
formidable foe for a guy like thePunisher. I don't think anybody's done it.
I think TV movie, the TVshow gets as close as possible,

(01:15:36):
and I think the next movie didits best to try to do it.
I think this was just like,we're not really gonna try to give you
that, We're gonna give you somethingdifferent. And everything you said with that
I believe is correct. And it'snot like I didn't appreciate any of it.
I mean, I thought that scenewas hilarious where he starts kicking it

(01:15:57):
around and then he's like, youhave too much furniture. Uh, it's
funny. And but man, Ihave this really weird relationship with John Travolta,
man Like I just don't take himseriously and I never have and I
never will. I don't think he'sa bad dude, per se. I
don't think he's a bad actor,per se. I mean scientologist. I

(01:16:20):
mean you can you can draw conclusionfor sure, right of course, right,
And I do say that about TomCruise, to be clear. But
it's it's so interesting. It's justa weird choice for me to be like,
all right, who's gonna be ourvillain in this movie? And then

(01:16:42):
they're just like, oh, yeah, it's gotta be Travolta. I mean,
this is this is four years afterBattlefield Earth. I think his only
movie in between this and Battlefield Earthwas gold Member. He plays a very
small part in that movie. Soit's like, I don't know, man,
this is just a weird time inhis career. And for me,

(01:17:03):
when I'm talking about the things thatI would want from a Punisher villain,
this is not it. And andI don't not appreciate some of the things
that he did, but when itdoesn't work for me, it doesn't work
and it didn't connect. What Iwill say is that I think audiences are
a little too harsh on his performance, especially the critics when this movie came

(01:17:25):
out, because they really ran thisguy through the wringer. It was genre.
Yeah, I think it's unfair tocriticize his performance in this even though
there were things that I didn't reallytake seriously, because I think he did
what they were trying to get himto do it. It's I mean,
we talked about this a few timeson the show, Jake Lloyd. I'm
at best several people who we discusssedjust playing their role to the best of

(01:17:51):
their ability, but getting shit on. And I think he did exactly what
they wanted him to do. Ifit doesn't work for you, then it
doesn't work for you. But tosay he's the worst thing about the movie.
I just think that's I mean,you're really trying to hurt this guy's
feelings at that point, because he'sjust not I mean, even as somebody
who really does not like him asa punisher villain, He's just not the

(01:18:14):
worst part of the movie. Idon't know, because because he's not the
physical threat to Frank Castle. Youknow, that's Quentin Glass and I think
I'm sorry. Who's the actor's name. Who's the actor Will Pat Yeah,
yeah, the guy from the NewHalloween movies. He's formidable in that way.

(01:18:34):
You know. That's why you haveKevin Nash. I just don't need
the big bad to In fact,I do enjoy this about the movie.
I don't need them to be thethreat. I need them to be a
representation of everything that our hero standsagainst. That type of villain does work

(01:18:55):
for me, the one that's notin themselves a threat. A movie came
out just before this in two thousandand three called The Rundown with Our Boy
Dwayne the Rock Johnson. That didit prove? Yeah, I don't know
that he's anybody's boy right now,honestly, including mine. But no,
like I mean that movie, ChristopherWatkins character in that movie is very much

(01:19:16):
a first of all, you're like, what are you doing in this?
But second of all, he's he'snot the threat, but he's what's behind
the threat, And I think thatcan be done well. It works for
me very well in that movie.I think it's within the context of The
Punisher that I'm disappointed with John Travolta, and and in the sense of like,

(01:19:36):
I don't like, I don't findI still think there has to be
an intimidation factor with a villain likethat, even if they're like like Christopher
Walkin's a funny guy and he's hardto take seriously, but there are moments
in the Rundown where you're like,oh, this guy's like really twisted,
like he'd like the things he's capableof. That's a pretty intimidating thing.
And in this movie you see likewhat John Travolta is capable of. I

(01:19:59):
mean, he had this whole guyfamily murdered for his son dying in a
situation that involved this guy. ButI never felt that he I don't until
we got the scene with the RussianI didn't feel like he or any of
his people were really that credible ofa threat. To Thomas Jane. Once

(01:20:20):
the Russian comes in, then they'rea little bit more of a threat because
now he's hurt. But before that, I really didn't buy it, and
I wasn't buying into it. Ijust would have expected more. But honestly,
like if they would have done asequel and they would have done something
different, I might have turned differentlyabout that, because I do like those
Superman movies and I do think thatit was a good idea to bring in

(01:20:41):
Zod in the second movie. Soyeah, maybe it would have been turned
around if they had a sequel.But for now we're left with this,
and I'm left with wanting more frommy Punisher villain, like I think the
audience wanted for that. The audiencedefinitely didn't want this. They did not,
right, they weren't. They eitherweren't end on the joke or didn't

(01:21:01):
appreciate the joke, right, Iwill agree, Yeah, but it's a
joke. I mean, it's it'sfarcical on purpose, right, and and
it just it also again adds tothe hate ability. I could not wait
to see Frank Castle get this guy. I couldn't wait to see him,
you know, get rid of hisfucking ice queen of a wife, the

(01:21:27):
woman who actually orders the death ofall their family members. And I think
that's a really effective moment. Thosekind of they're not intimidating, but they're
they're pretty chilling. I mean,these are like truly like people without morals
or any sense of good. Itwas kind of shocking to me to see

(01:21:47):
this guy that I've been like shakingmy head out or rolling my eyes out
or laughing at, just like throughoutthe entire movie, and John Travolta all
of a sudden just like stab thisguy to death pretty brutally and then toss
his wife over a breage. Iwas kind of like in front of an
oncoming in front of an oncoming train. I was like, oh my god.

(01:22:08):
So yeah, it's don't get mewrong, there are things I like
about how the character is used throughoutthe movie. I just I don't I
don't want to say it was miscastbecause John Travolta did what he was asked
to do, and I don't thinkit was necessarily miscast. I just I
don't know I would have wanted somethingdifferent. It's a similar complaint that I
had about Thomas Jane just on alittle bit bigger of the level, because

(01:22:30):
if you're gonna give us that herothat as our hero, fine, I
just would have wanted a little bitmore from the villain personally. But I'm
definitely not in the agreement of theaudience, like fully that he's like the
worst thing about the movie and thathe, you know, he makes the
movie bad. I don't. Ithink that's taking it way too far,
as general audiences are sometimes known todo. I think that's a bit of

(01:22:54):
an overreaction. Well at the sametime, and he's a pretty easy thing
to point to and say, youdon't belong in this movie. Yeah,
He's an easy thing to point outin a lot of things. I think,
Man, okay, look are wegonna are we gonna have to fight
about John de Volton now? BecauseI because I got my pulp fiction cap
I got hey, look, pulpfiction works, get shorty works. I

(01:23:18):
even like him in the taking ofPelm one two three remake. That's a
movie that nobody saw. That's amovie that nobody that nobody saw or nobody
liked one of the two and Iand I will defend I will defend him
in all of those I don't defendhim into everything. He's a weird man

(01:23:38):
man. Well, dude, Like, here's the thing, I don't hate
him. Like Pulp Fiction is aperfect example of a movie that I think
he's very good. And I evenlike him in Greece. I mean,
people love the movie Grease, buthe's a problem that people have with it.
I don't hate him in that.I don't hate him in Look who's
talking? I love Look who's talking? Okay, now you lost me.

(01:23:58):
I guess I understand. Yeah,you know what he's even like. I
mean there's a reason why, likegreat directors have wanted to work with him.
You know, Brian de Palma casthim in the lead of one of
his most acclaimed movies, blow Out, because John Devolta really brings up a
charisma that very few actors can.Like, if you can harness that energy,
I think you've got a hit.I think you've got something that really

(01:24:20):
works. And it's weird. Imean, I want to compare him to
Tom Cruise so much. And Idon't know if that's just because they're scientologists,
but either scientology attracts men of theirof their acting style, or they're
you know, they're you know,they went into scientology. Now they don't
know how to play normal people.They can only play like weird, larger

(01:24:42):
than life kind of kind of weirdos. I said weird weirdos, didn't I
good, Lord, I do wantto make sure we don't get out of
praising johns Travolta without bringing up faceOff. I just want to throw that
out there. Face Off is anothera perfect example of his you know,
he's he's very Nick Cage esque actor. To me, it's it's funny that

(01:25:03):
seems fair assessment. As often asNick Cage will play one of those crazy
performances that lands with people, itseems like John Devolta has one that is
equally's any but that flopped with people. This is an example. Yeah,
I mean there's there's also a bitof a difference between them, but you

(01:25:27):
know, especially especially the idea ofplaying into a joke. I think Nick
Cage has gotten very, very goodat that. I mean, they literally
made a movie about him being NickCage, which is I mean just incredible.
Is the second John Travolta does that, maybe a ton of his things
will turn around for me. Andand until he makes something like Mandy,
I think I'm just gonna stand whereI where I am right now with him,

(01:25:49):
where I think he's been fantastic insome things. I think he just
hit a point in his career wherehe really stalled out and he just unfortunately
never really recovered from it. Andand I think this is a part of
his performances, that this is apart of that era. But I would
not say it's on par with hisbad movies. But he doesn't stand out

(01:26:12):
as a positive for me. ButI mean that's look, we talked a
lot about what audiences don't like aboutthis. Was there anything else that you
saw in reviews that you wanted tokind of bring up before we delivered our
final verdicts on this movie. Idefinitely saw a lot of people say that
the action wasn't up to par withwhat a punishment movie should have. And
there's a reason for that. Yeah, And before I even say if I

(01:26:33):
agree or not, the reality isthis movie's budget was slashed, so it
seems like they only had enough moneyfor one truly epic throwdown at the end,
and I think they they used theirresources very well. See, the
thing is, we don't have alot of action scenes. We have action

(01:26:54):
beats, like they're not long enoughto be considered scenes. But I think
of the the little mini chase thatwe have with the Johnny Cash killer.
Yeah, and I like the waythat ends. It's so simple, but
it's it's a testament to the factthat this is a more clever punisher,

(01:27:15):
more resourceful punisher. It really makessense to me that he was in the
army, because you know, Imean, in the army, you don't
just like run out and shoot yourmachine gun in every direction. You have
to strategize these things. Yeah,I really don't have any complaints about the
action. I mean, it's athirty three million dollar action movie. Maybe

(01:27:39):
there could have been a little bitmore, but I like what we got.
I think that's why I'm not reallyangry about it, is because like
what we got was was good.I do think they could have gone a
little and again, they didn't havethe context of this this time. But
I don't know what the budget forDread was, but I don't believe it
was very high. And I thinkthat's a movie that utilizes its action sequences

(01:28:02):
very well. In this movie,I think it could have used more action,
but I'm not disappointed by what wegot. I think what they delivered
when they did action. I likewhat you said, little snippets of action
throughout the movie. I think theydid it very well. I mean,
it's interesting that you bring up dread. I just rewatched it and I was
reminded of how of how well madethat movie was. It truly is a

(01:28:26):
finally put together movie. That beingsaid, it really is a series of
shoot them ups. It's a seriesof you know, and I'm not slamming
that, I'm not, but youknow, I think this director wanted more
variety. Agree with you delivered that. I mean, we have we have
a car chase, we have afistfight, one of the most memorable memorable

(01:28:49):
fist fights since they live. Really, then we end, you know,
and we also bookend it with theseyou know, big showdown gun fights,
you know, from the fan massacreto the climax. So I actually think
the action is really well handled andit's a little more tasteful. And I
think that's something that I think LexiAlexander said, Oh fuck that what You're

(01:29:15):
making a drama with action beats.We're making an action movie with action beats.
And if you know, and ifRay Stevenson can even just look at
the camera with a hint of melancholy. That's enough drama for us. Care
to comment, Connor, I'll saveit, Okay, Okay. This ended

(01:29:36):
up being a huge preview to ourwar zone discussion because I've been ever since
you suggested doing this as a specialI'm like, wait, that means I
get to talk about Punisher war zone. Okay, all right, I just
started. I started loading up likethe Punisher, you know. Okay,
another problem with this movie, Ohtoo many land mines. This Punisher's main

(01:29:59):
weapon, and Lane has a lotof land mines. It felt a little
strange how many times we just seehim putting land mines on things. The
utilization of them was very weird,even though we do get that cool visual
of the cars that all exploded inthe shape of the Punisher logo, which,
oh, you think that's cool.Okay, I mean it's cheesy as

(01:30:21):
hell, but it's you know,I mean, it's a cool visual to
see stop doing things with that logo. Okay, So middle school, anytime
he like, anytime he spray paintsit, or he paints it in blood,
or he carves it. It's justlike in middle school. I would

(01:30:44):
have thought that was lamb. Imean, that's fair. That's fair.
I liked the visual of the carsthat exploded, but I think it was
dumb how they got there. Ithink it's kind of like it kind of
makes him into a character in thisthat they didn't set him up to be
up until that point, because like, what motivation would he have to to
to Like he would have had togo above, look at the cars,

(01:31:06):
map out where to put the bombs. Then once he mapped out where to
put the bombs, he would havehad to have known that the cars on
each other side were distance enough thatsomething nobody would see. It's something nobody
else. Nobody would say, we'reflying over on a plane and they could
look, we're in like a highrise building somewhere nearby. Yeah, it's

(01:31:27):
a bit of a stretch to thinkthat somebody would see it. It's one
of those things that like they putin the movie to be a cool visual,
to have a cool trailer moment,but doesn't make any sense in the
context of the movie. Well,I did think it was a cool visual,
Like there are plenty of times Iwatch a movie and I'm like,
oh, that that's pretty cool,but it doesn't make any sense. They
also just ripped off the Crow,which is to this, it's very fair,

(01:31:51):
the best revenge movie, the bestrevenge comic book movie. It's almost
like they should have really stopped makingrevenge movies after the Crow, including Crow
sequels. I think everybody should hangit up after that Crow sequels Wear big
mistake, big mistake. I don'tknow they're about to make a new mistake.

(01:32:15):
Yeah, I don't know. Imean, I like both scars guard.
I think he should wear a bulletproofvest every day to work. I
wish you well, and this iswell, that's the scariest part of this
for me, is like I'm nota superstitious guy, you know what I
mean, But like when when youhave a movie that says like it's like
Poltergeist, you know, it's likeyou just you just don't do it again,

(01:32:40):
just for say, everyone's safety.If they ever try to remake Rust,
it's like, thirty years from now, I'm gonna be like, please
don't fucking do that. How aboutplease don't finish making it? Okay,
Now, I'm gonna defend that alittle bit because I think, well,
in the case of Rust, theperson who was shot her husband has been

(01:33:04):
a part of the production moving forwardand was a big advocate for the movie
finishing. So and like the actorsinvolved, like you know, this is
like this could be something that's likelife changing for some people. Fun.
Were you a Nickelodeon kid growing up? No, okay, I wanting to
ask you about that. A SpongeBobkid. Okay. So there was this

(01:33:26):
show on Nickelodeon when we were kidscalled Neds The Classified School Survival Guy for
sure. Yeah, yeah, sothe kids. Okay, So the kid
from NEDS is in Rust and thisis like a Neds in Rust and this
is like a big moment for himthat So they have a podcast I've been
listening to. I listened to iton accident. I hit it and I
was like, I'll listen to acouple of minutes. It's actually quite good.

(01:33:49):
But he talked about that, abouthow awful it was and about how
terrible it was, but how muchlike everybody was heartbroken because they thought that
this, this project that was sofun for everybody before that happened, was
never going to finish. And soI get finishing a movie after a tragedy
happens on set. I think therehave been plenty of films where tragedies have

(01:34:10):
happened that, you know. Idon't know that it's always the right decision
to shut it down. I thinkit would be wrong to continue like the
day after, or just like scoopthe body up or scoop up whatever ends
up happening, and just keep going. But it's a tough discussion, but
I think there are circumstances where youcan continue. I'm glad they did it

(01:34:34):
with The Crow because it turned outto be a tremendous film. The Crow
goes wrong with the Yeah, Imean the Crow was almost done. It's
a different situation. I mean they'regonna have to you know that they have
to hire a new photographer, andI just can't imagine being a person who
has to fill those shoes. Oh, you're a very similar way that I

(01:34:55):
can't imagine playing Eric Draven. Couldyou imagine stepping on the set in that
costume? Like it must have feltso ominous. I can't imagine the crew
would have been like in good spirits. It's just it's belief in the situation.
Like the Crow, you know,retire the number, you know,

(01:35:20):
I will agree on the Crow,I think with a remake like it could
like I think it can be doneright, but with how much could go
wrong, not just with somebody potentiallygetting injured. Like again, I'm not
superstitious or anything, but it justfeels like sometimes I'm under the mindset that

(01:35:45):
you could really try to remake anythingyou want, do it. It's not
gonna take my enjoyment away from whateverit is you're remaking. If you want
to remake Halloween, go for it. If you want to remake Nightmare on
Elm Street, go for it.If you're going to remake any of the
Beloved, you can remake anything.In my mind, nothing's untouchable, but
some things people should show more discretionwhen thinking of trying to remake them.

(01:36:08):
I think The Crow should be muchfurther down the list than other movies.
I think remaking should have a differentattitude. Remaking movies should have a different
attitude than it currently has. AndI think the last movie to remake,
in my opinion, is The Crow. I mean, I don't mind that
they're doing something in the Crow universewith the Crow mythos. I've actually come
up with a few different pitches ifI ever get so lucky about other movies

(01:36:32):
that could be made in that universe, but they're remaking the Eric Draven story
specifically, and that's where I'm like, because it is specifically we're redoing this
from what Brandon Lee did. It'snot a different chapter in this story.
Like, I don't mind that theymade Crow sequels and you know, on

(01:36:53):
paper, I mean, the resultsare tragic in their own right. But
yeah, I mean, I'll probablysee the movie when it comes out,
and I hope genuinely that it turnsout well, that everybody's proud of what
they do and that somebody gets toplay Eric Draven and continue to have a
career after that. But I mean, no movie is gonna have to have

(01:37:15):
more of an uphill battle in termsof earning goodwill from its audience than this
movie. I bet I will agree, And I think if you have no
objections, that will lead us toour final verdicts on The Punisher. Yeah,
now that we've like basically forgotten whatwe were talking about originally, and
I was like, the only wayI know that we're talking about The Punisher

(01:37:36):
is because Thomas Jane is my backdropon my Zoom profile. So I am
ready to wrap this up. Oneof three Punisher movies that we'll be discussing.
I will go ahead and say thisis my favorite Punisher movie, and
if not for some of the flawsI'm about to address, it'd probably my

(01:37:58):
favorite version of the character on screen, honestly. But you know, if
you don't mind me starting first,since you know this was my pick and
I've had time to really put mythoughts together about this, this is a
movie that I've had a complicated relationship. I had dismissed it for a long
time as being a generic, failedattempt to adapt a Marvel character that I

(01:38:24):
really had no love for. ThenI rewatched it, and I started taking
mental notes of all the risks theydid take and realizing just how interesting of
a casting choice Thomas Jane was.So once I started to note the fact
that this movie had more balls thanpeople gave a credit for, it started

(01:38:46):
to kind of rise back in myesteem. And of course, there are
things that I've always really liked,such as the action, and a lot
of the performances here worked for meclearly more so than with a lot of
lot of people. But man,you hit the nail on the head.
What is this movie really trying tobe? Like? What tone? What

(01:39:08):
is it trying to say where couldthey have even gone in future sequels,
because I don't know what this Punisherlooks like when he's not going out for
revenge. You know, he isso tied to his origin that it is
hard to imagine. And that's notgreat for a movie that, you know,
like it really bills itself as thefirst of a series and dedicates so

(01:39:33):
much of its friend time to tryand get you interested in this series.
You know, I feel like Iknow more about Frank Castle than I do
The Punisher, which is part ofthe point but also part of the problem.
Now, does that actually make ita bad movie? Do I have
a bad time watching this? No, like really far from it. Like

(01:39:56):
I was surprised at how entertained Iwas by it the last goo around,
And you know, it's a movieI own. It's a movie I will
continue to watch. So yeah,it's actually good. It is nowhere near
as bad as people have made itout to be, and it is obviously
the best Punisher movie to me.Interesting. Interesting, No that I mean,

(01:40:19):
like that's a it's a great perspectiveto have, and it's one that
I wish I could share fully,but I'm not quite there. And I'll
explain why you know this is thisis a movie that most of the good
feelings that I have about it comefrom the fact that it's something that is
easily capturing a lot of things thatI'm very nostalgic about. It's a powerful
drug, nostalgia is and I'm somebodywho's completely hooked on it. And when

(01:40:44):
discussing The Punisher, I think there'sa lot of missed opportunity. I think
there's a lot of weird decisions,but I also think that there is a
lot of really solid choices, andthere's a lot of things that it did
a lot better than it needed to. There's there's things that they really could

(01:41:08):
have gotten wrong in this movie thatI'm surprised that they nailed. There's also
things that I'm really surprised that theyincluded. All in all, it's funny.
This was gonna be the first timeever that I didn't have a final
verdict because I really didn't know whatto say in the words of the song
that is played twice in the movieand once in the credits, I did

(01:41:30):
not think I was strong enough toactually come up with a final verdict,
but I but I do have oneI'm going to say that The Punisher from
two thousand and four is not thatbad. It it's just barely not that
bad. This movie's got a twopoint nine. I would give it a
three. I would say it's solidat parts, weekend others. But not

(01:41:54):
a movie anybody should discount. Nota movie that anybody shouldn't you should have,
should avoid unless you already know youdon't like it. In that case,
maybe stay away unless you're you're willingto give it another chance. But
if you're not, no sense inrevisiting it on a hate watch. It's
just not one of those movies.And I think, though it's a question

(01:42:14):
for you, do you think Punisherfans should give it another chance? I
think if they have some of thesome of the things that we said in
this movie that could redeem other partsof the movie. I think so.
Not that we're like the fucking Messiahof movie things like nobody needs to come
to us for these things, butwe did bring up some points that do

(01:42:36):
redeem some of the non Punisher factorsof this movie. I don't think it's
the perfect Punisher movie for the fansof The Punisher, but I also don't
think it's the most egregious of thethree in discounting the Punisher lore. So
give it a shot. If you'venever seen it you're a Punisher fan,

(01:42:58):
but no going into it like thisis a movie that really tried to satisfy
people who knew nothing about Punisher andpeople knew who knew everything about Punisher,
and in doing so, they kindof failed at doing both. So in
some ways they failed at doing it. They failed at overall from a general
consensus point of view, but theysucceeded in some areas, and they failed
in some areas, and unfortunately forthe majority of the audience, they failed

(01:43:19):
in most of them. Don't letthat deter you from checking this out.
If you have not seen it,There you go, There you have it.
Yeah, pretty modest reappraisal. Imean, I don't think either of
us. Yeah, I mean,it's not a movie that I think should
get passionate hate. It didn't reallyeven for a fan like me, I

(01:43:45):
can call it great. There aretoo many flaws. Maybe it had potential
somewhere along the lines. I thinkthey had some of the right people that
could have made it great. Andin that way, yeah, it was
a little bit of a bummer thatthis movie is so confused about its own
identity. But hey, we onlyhave three Punisher movies, and if you're

(01:44:08):
looking for Punisher movie night, Ireally can't make a better recommendation than this.
Of course, you could just bingethe Netflix series, which I have
my own complicated feelings about, butthat is a story for another time.
That being said, we're really happythat you guys are listening to this,
and of course thank you for supportingus on the Patreon. We want to

(01:44:30):
keep delivering content for you guys thatyou'll be interested in. If you haven't
seen this movie in a while andremember it being bad, I would say
check it out. If you've heardreally negative things and you've always stayed away,
I say check it out. Theonly reason to not give this a
chance is because the Punisher character willjust never be appealing for you. And

(01:44:50):
it's funny. I would have putmyself in that camp, but this movie
managed to scrounge up just enough appealfor me. You know, so anything
can happen, yes, and Ihope it scrounges up enough to to be
a delight for all of you.But for now, I don't think there's
really anything left for us to doexcept to say, visit our website,

(01:45:13):
not that Badpod dot com, uhto to read some fun bios on us
and check out our episode catalog,and of course to make sure that you
stay tuned for our third episode whenwe'll be covering Punish your war Zone,
which will it'll take a really differentdirection than this episode. This like this,
this whole thing of like defending themovie and arguing that it's good.

(01:45:35):
That's not really something you're gonna getfor me at least uh the next time
around. So if you want to, if you want to see you know,
Ranty Gabe, then you're you're infor a treat. Angry Gable make
an appearance. I wonder if ifAngry Gable will make you transition to La

(01:45:56):
Gabe. I wonder if you'll getreal uh real lost angelus about it.
That'll be interesting. That's my versionof hulking out. You just would starting
glasses on and tell and keep tellingpeople that that there's a non Boba version
of Boba t oh Man. Uh. Yeah, but that'll be a fun
episode. I've said it this wholetime. It'll be really fun to talk

(01:46:19):
about. I do want to givea little bit of a teaser from my
side to say, you're gonna wantto check it out if Gabe's gonna be
angry and ranty, because it'll bean interesting discussion from my side Land.
So you know, who knows itcould be? It could be a duel,
you know, are we gonna waterWorld punish your war zone? Or

(01:46:43):
are we going to have a duelof the fates. Uh? Only time
will tell for now, though,Thank you for checking out the episode.
Mister Tice. Would you like todo what you normally do and take us
out for the episode. Oh yeah, I'll take you all all right with
my Oh what am I doing?This is the Punisher. Here's my Land

(01:47:05):
that I'm depositing. He's putting itunder your desk right now or under your
car wherever you are listening to this, and it's gonna explode and make a
fiery not that bad logo. Ohnow, I want a fiery not that
bad logo somewhere behind me here Now, I definitely don't want that, don't

(01:47:25):
need that. All right, I'llmake one for you. I'll send it
to you, of course you will. Thanks for checking us out, guys.
As always, I'm Gabe O'Connor,and this is not that bad signing out

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The Punisher '04 - Just Off The Mark

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