The Punisher '89 - Marvel's First Movie (And Bomb) - That Bad Media

Episode Transcript
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(00:30):
Ladies and gentlemen, congratulations. Ifyou're listening to this, you are among
the privileged elite that gets access toour Patreon specials. We let the common
folks see some of our other discussionson YouTube and on other podcasting platforms,

(00:54):
but you guys get the real deal. And this month we have something truly
special in store for y'all. Weare talking about the comic book character who
has had the worst luck in termsof cinematic adaptations, even worse than the
Hulk, worse than anybody else youcan think of. Because there are three

(01:19):
Punisher movies, and three out ofthose three Punisher movies have less than the
three on letterbox, making them alleligible for our show. And I really
wanted to talk about Punisher two thousandand four, and Connor wanted to talk
about Punisher Warzone from two thousand andeight, and then we decided to toss

(01:42):
in the nineteen eighty nine version starringGolf Lendron. Why not? Al generous
of us? Why not? Indeed? Anyways, I'm Gabe, your co
host, and with me is myillustrious co host. Yeah. How does
it feel? Connor? So?Connor, how are you doing today?

(02:04):
Well? Yes, I am Connoraka Dolph Lungren's eccentric brother Rolf Lungren,
And man, you know, damn, I'm so happy to be sitting here
today, not so much for thefirst chapter of this road, but for
where this road will inevitably go.Let's just say people are gonna want to

(02:27):
stick around for now. Though.I am very excited to be talking about
this. Believe it or not,I'm probably the only person on earth excited
to talk about this movie. Forbetter and most definitely for worse. This
is gonna be an interesting one.Man, We're going into this this This
is kind of different than I thinkthis is. Is this the first movie

(02:49):
we've ever covered on the show that'sbeen direct to video, So there is
such a weird history behind this movie. So you call it direct to video,
which it was in America, Butthis was released theatrically around the world,
and it wasn't released in America untilwhat two years after it was released

(03:12):
overseas. It was released in eightynine overseas and then ninety one direct to
video in the United States. Sowhen we call it eighty nine, America
didn't even get to see this movieuntil years later. So this is what's
interesting. I read some message boardstuff that was online. It was just
kind of like floating in Google imagessomewhere, and it talked about people vividly

(03:36):
remembering being trailers for this movie beforeit was supposed to release with a release
date in eighty nine. But Icouldn't find any records of this movie being
for sale in the United States untilnineteen ninety one. That's the release date
that it has for North America ona few different sources including Everybody's favorite Wikipedia.
And so this is I mean,like, this is an interesting movie

(04:00):
first off, and to let everybodyknow, definitely eligible for our show.
A two point six out of fiveon Letterbox and a twenty eight percent on
Rotten Tomatoes. This is the lowestof the three. The other two movies
have the same score of twenty ninepercent. This one has twenty eight,
just below. I don't know whatthe odds of that are, but either
way, we have to dive intothis. At least it wasn't diminishing returns.

(04:25):
It was just, yeah, justplateaued from the beginning and until we
got to John Burenthal's version. Yeah, it's interesting when you look at Letterbox
for like audience reactions because it's notlike tons of people have seen both this
film and war Zone. Now I'mnot gonna lie to you. Both of
those films have a much lower amountof people reviewing them than The Punisher from

(04:46):
two thousand and four, and rightlyso. One of the movies is the
lowest grossing film in the history ofcomic book movies, or at least the
Marvel comic book movies, and theother one was not even released theatrically in
North America. But you start hereat a two point six, you go
to a two point nine for ThePunisher four and back down to a two
point seven for war Zone, makingthis across the board the lowest rated of

(05:11):
the Punisher films. We'll see ifit deserves that distinction by the end of
the episode. But do you haveany history with this film at all?
So let's talk not only about thismovie, but the history of comic book
films, because this movie has sucha weird distinction to it outside of the
Howard the Duck the movie, whichI really you know, that's an off

(05:34):
brand Marvel at asterisk, yeah,next to it. This is the first
cinematic adaptation of a Marvel superhero ever, now it gets complicated because some of
the TV shows of Marvel properties,such as The Incredible Hulk and The Amazing

(05:57):
Spider Man from the seventies turned intomovies to be released in certain parts of
the world, you know, likeGreece and Turkey, And there were some
weird releases of like a Captain Americamovie in like the forties or something.
But it's like that was just notcounted as that was the cereal. You
know. There were a lot ofcomic book serials. Superman, Batman,

(06:24):
Shazam all had serials, but obviouslythat's not what we are talking about in
terms of feature film aspectations. Thiswas the first attempt to bring a Marvel
superhero to the big screen. Didn'treally go as planned. It was intended
to be a that it was intendedto be a theatrical film until the last

(06:44):
minute. That's why you have peoplewho remember seeing trailers for it. A
very similar thing happened to the infamousCaptain America movie with Yes, Captain America,
Rubber Ears and the really god Red, a movie that's infinitely worse than
any of the movies in the Punisherlineup, to be sure, But have

(07:08):
you ever seen Red Letter Media talkabout that. Oh it's incredible. Anybody
who hasn't seen Red Letter Media talkabout that movie, please go watch it.
It is one of the worst moviesI've ever seen, and those guys
make it so much more fun.And they also talk about Supergirl, a
movie which I might do end forthis program because I adore that movie.

(07:29):
Oh, don't question me on that, Connor. Hey, look, we
may have a future preview of thingsto come on the show. I'm not
going to judge anything until that daycomes. Maybe i'll judge you in the
episode we'll find out. For now, I'm not judging shit man. So
this is basically the really awkward firststeps of a baby. You know,

(07:55):
It's like, Yay, you cando it, but then the baby falls
over and it starts crying. It'slike, Okay, this is going to
take a little bit longer. Right. It wouldn't be another seven years until
audiences got Blade and then X Menand then Spiderman and the rest is history
pretty much. But that's the onlyreal appreciation I had for this movie before

(08:18):
starting this podcast. I was nota big enough Punisher fan yeah to seek
this out. And my feeling isabout the Punisher character will get revealed over
the course of these discussions, butit's impossible not to come up. Yeah,
well, of course, I mean, you know, that's the context
in which we partly have to evaluatethese movies. But my history, I

(08:41):
was curious. I was a littleintrigued, but it wasn't like the Roger
Korman Fantastic four, where it's likeyou hear about it and you have to
see this because what could this thingeven look like? Like? I knew
what this movie would be, andI was right, a generic vigilante thriller
that could have been produced by CannonFilm elms that you know, it makes

(09:03):
perfect sense why they did The Punisherfirst in terms of adapting a Marvel property,
because he's like the cheapest, right, and he's one of the few
Marvel characters without superpowers. He justrelies on guns and bravado, really nothing
that would require nothing that would require, you know, the budget of a

(09:24):
Spider Man movie, right. SoI just didn't have the interest to check
this movie out until this podcast.And I'm curious what your history is.
This is a movie I thought Ihad seen for years, and I had
told people that I had seen andthat I didn't remember much about it,
but that I don't remember particularly lovingit or particularly hating it, and rewatching

(09:46):
it for this well, watching itfor the first time for this I discovered
I had not seen this movie.But I also have some history for the
people here as well, because thisis actually an interesting case study this movie
because the year that this came out, we had another superhero film the revered

(10:07):
in many ways, Batman nineteen eightynine. Tim Burton's Batman comes in a
little movie called Batman, A littlemovie called Batman, a movie that changed
the face of comic book films forever, one of the biggest successes of a
gamble of all time, came outthe same year that a movie that failed
to garner support to get to theaterson the other side of the coin.

(10:31):
And it's an interesting historical point intime to look at because you see,
DC at this point, with therelease of Batman, was one of the
most celebrated things, celebrated comic bookanything, and they and they had a
point Superman, right, yes,and they had released Superman, big success
in right the world of comic bookmovies, Superman the movie, and then

(10:52):
Superman too. So if you're acomic book fan in nineteen eighty nine,
you're seeing DC clean house in theirmovie adaptations and Marvel like their first real
attempts to get off the ground havenot just failed, they've failed miserably.
You might never think that you're goingto get a Spider Man movie, which,

(11:15):
by the way, they were tryingto make a Spider Man movie around
this time, and thank god thatdidn't happen. If you want to see
some of the concepts that they weredrawing up for a Spider Man movie,
if you want to see some ofthe names attached, they were talking to
people like Joseph Zito, Toby Hooper. They wanted to turn Spider Man into

(11:37):
a Spider Man, which is kindof awesome, but not for the very
first adaptation of Spider Man. Sothis movie, look, let's just get
this out of the way. I'mvery little in the way to say about
this movie, The Punisher starring DolphLundron, which by the way, is
why we have been going so farto tell you history, because this conversation

(12:01):
may not be too long. Neitheris the movie, by the way,
the most interesting that I want tothrow in there. The movie's not super
long either, So God no,it's the shortest, right, yeah,
I think it's like an hour andthirty minutes. It's like, it's like
this is like the shortest, justleast intrusive watch of the entire franchise of
these movies. It's the entire threemovies that they made of The Punisher.

(12:24):
So that's why we're giving all thishistory lesson because even that is more entertaining
to talk about the well than thismovie. But like you know, looking
at looking at how DC films faredback then, like that would continue into
the New millennium, you know whatI mean? Like Batman and Robin came
out just before the end of thenineties and ninety seven, and Blade didn't

(12:48):
come out too far around that timeperiod. When did Blade hit the feat
ninety seven ninety eight time, andeven Batman and Robin, which is considered
one of the worst comic book moviesof all time clean house at the box
office compared to the good Marvel moviesthat were coming out. I think X
Men was really the first time thatpeople really started to take their movies like

(13:11):
seriously on a commercial level. Bladewas taken seriously by people who liked it
and loved it and went and watchedit as it should be. It's a
great movie. It's so it didn'tclean house like the DC movies were.
And a lot of people didn't knowthat Blade was an adaptation of a Marvel's
comic, right, right, Bladewasn't an iconic character from those comics.

(13:31):
You would have had to be asuper geek to make that connection back when
the first Blade came out, Andnow we can put it in context.
But yeah, X Men is thefirst real success for Marvel, and it's
a pretty modest success. It's morelike a Okay, I think we've more
or less figured out what we're doing, We've figured out starting to do.

(13:54):
It's a starting point, starting point. Yeah, and then again Spider Man
two thousand and two, that thatjust changes everything. It is a bigger
success than Yes, I mean,just in the world of blockbusters. It
is enormous. It is a gamechanger. Right. And then when you

(14:15):
look at the comic book movies thatcame before, it's like it almost Theano
snapped away most of those shitty moviesbecause we don't need them even for novelty
anymore. We might get good superheromovies, dude. And it came out
at the perfect time, because thisis again right after Batman and Robin critically

(14:37):
ate it. I mean, commerciallyit did very well, but critically that
movie was was fucking plastered that movie, dude, It's impossible to say that
that movie was not destroyed by critics, by just regular viewers. And so
that felt like the changing, theswitching of the of everything, the changing

(15:01):
of the tides, as they say, And it's just so interesting to see
that changeover because DC, despite havingsome big success since then with creating what
some people say critically is maybe thebest made superhero film of all time with
The Dark Knight. I don't knowthat I fall into that conversation, but
it's a fantastic movie. And evenwith those movies and successes along the way,

(15:26):
they still really can't catch Marvel atthis point. They try. They
make a lot of money, theymake a lot of money for Warner Brothers,
but look at where they are now. I mean, they're sort of
in the place that Marvel was atthe beginning of the nineties. You know,
they're having movies that are failing toget released. They're having movies that
are getting mostly completed and then gettingcanceled. I mean, we're at a

(15:46):
really interesting point in time, andthat's about the point in time that we're
at when The Punisher comes out ineighty nine. And so I want to
ask you you want to start talkingabout this movie. I was about to
say, as much as I wouldlike to talk about most other comic book
movies, but this one, weshould probably actually start talking about it.

(16:07):
I suppose there's a reason we're notthat bad, and we don't talk about
those movies very often. So there'sa glimpse into what a podcast could be
if we talked about good stuff.But for now, we're talking about the
stuff you don't like. And that'swhy we got to start talking about Punisher
eighty nine. But we're gonna bekind at first. You know, we
start this show off with some positivity. We always try to be pretty positive.

(16:27):
So do you have it's something youwant to throw out there as something
you like about this movie. Look, let's clarify this. This is not
a terrible movie. This isn't aright disaster. It's not embarrassing. I
mean, it's nobody's best work.There are moments of embarrassment, Yeah,
there are moments of embarrassment, butI'm comparing it to Howard the Duck.

(16:48):
Right, it is a standard pieceof action shlock of the time. And
whether or not you are endeared tothat, to that subgenre, I guess
if you love movies like Cobra orreally any of the stuff that sy Vester
Stallone was doing around this time,I mean, this might be the movie

(17:11):
for you. Who knows in termsof the stuff that I like about this
thematically, they're onto something here.I was surprised at how seriously they took
the character of the Punisher in termsof of let's let's actually talk about the
Punisher. Is what he's doing right? If he's not right, then what

(17:38):
can the law do to prevent somebodylike Frank Castle from feeling like he has
to take the law into his intohis own net, into his own hands.
God, I feel as mumble mouthedas a Dolph wondering in this movie,
Jesus well, I will certainly getto do We're not talking about that
yet. We're not talking about that. It's a Dolph no thematically, and

(18:02):
this is that big barrier for meand the Punisher where I do think it's
a gross idea, like socially,like I don't want a guy like the
Punisher around. I would love tohave Spider Man or Superman, but the
Punisher is somebody I want to stayon the page. And this movie,
really do you constructs him in someinteresting manners. I don't think that the

(18:26):
execution lives up to a lot ofthe ideas. We'll get into that,
but I was surprised at how thoughtfulI found this movie. In many ways
it was. It was more impressiveon that front than anything about the action
in this movie. I don't know. I mean, first I want to
hear if you agree with me onthat, and then you know, we

(18:48):
can talk about what you really likedabout this movie. Yeah, you know.
I it's so funny because I hadthe same thought when I was going
through We Are Coming. I'll neverforgive you for pointing that out. But

(19:11):
no, in all seriousness, whenI was watching this movie, I was
surprised at how well intentioned it seemed. Nothing about this movie. We talked
a lot about movies that have alot of malice behind it when they're adapting
something, and well, I don'tthink they showed malice. I don't think
they didn't show malice everywhere. Ithink there was a lot of things about

(19:36):
the source material, which we'll getto that they just decided that can stay
there. But the movie as awhole, the story of the of the
film felt really well intentioned. Uh, there was a lot of heart to
it. It was very strange forme to go into a Punisher film and
be like, Wow, this overwhelmingly, this feels like the most positive film

(20:00):
of the three. It feels likethe most well intentioned movie of the three
as far as the significance of theirstory goes. And for that, I
have to give them props. It'snot something I would have put down for
something I liked about the movie.It's just something I noticed and took in
and was like, wow, Okay, this is where we're going with this.

(20:22):
I'm actually gonna say the action isthe first thing that I want to
talk about, because like, andI want to bring this up too.
This movie, this movie's budget wasnot high. I did some calculations because
you know, I'd like to thinkof myself as a professional. I'm not,

(20:45):
but in doing some calculations as faras like inflation adjustment. Between this
movie and Punisher war Zone, whichcame out in two thousand and seven,
this movie was made for ten milliondollars at the time that it came out
in eighty nine, which would havebeen roughly like seventeen million dollars in two
thousand and eight. Man, wouldit be great for inflation to still kind

(21:07):
of be that low over that muchtime. But interestingly, Punisher Warzone was
made for like thirty three million dollars, and neither movie feels cheap. But
this movie surprisingly doesn't feel cheap.It does feel a little bit like a
high end TV movie. I thinkI can compare it a lot budget budget

(21:27):
wise, like how it looks andfeels to the IT mini series which came
out the next year. It feelslike from a budget standpoint that they had
very similar amounts to work with.Some of the shot composition was weirdly similar
as well, which kind of weirdedme out a little bit. I got
weird vibes from some of that.But they definitely did not spare any expenses

(21:51):
when it came to the action ofthe movie. They did everything they could
to pack this thing. Every timethey put action on the screen. They
wanted it to feel like it wasa can movie, which was very clear
to me because cannon films are knownfor their absolute chaos, and this movie
does have a decent amount of it. There's even one scene that is hilarious
to me where he goes into thisI don't know if you if you even

(22:15):
noted this, but the bad guyshave this like casino or something in town
where there's girls dancing and all thisstuff, and Punisher drops through the through
the glass ceiling of this place likeBatman, and like, yes, like
Batman, exactly like it. It'salmost exact, and he he begins unloading
his machine gun, and I swearto you, it is the longest I've

(22:38):
ever seen anybody shoot in any movie. There's a movie that makes fun of
that called hot Shots, Part douIt's it's the second hot Shots movie starring
Charlie Sheen, a parody where they'remaking fun of Rambo. He shoots longer
in this movie than the parody ofRambo does in a parody movie. It
was insane. It went on forlike three full minutes of shooting. This

(23:00):
mission gone for three minutes. Iguess I checked out after minute one.
Dude, it went on for solong. I could not believe how long
this was happening. For that beingsaid, it's It's one of the examples
of just the fun that the actionbrings to the movie. It does not
ever say the action lacks I don't. I don't see any review that says

(23:23):
this movie lacks in action, becauseit doesn't. It makes it. It
makes it a very fun experience whenyou get to those scenes. In my
opinion, see I don't know ifI'm there. I don't think all the
action falls flat. I think theaction is where the tone really struggles,
because I think they are trying todo something a little bit more serious or

(23:45):
at the very least more dramatic withthe Punisher character. But then you have
this really wacky stuff straight out ofa cannon movie. You know, you
have Ninja sliding down on these likewe kind of like funhouse slides, shooting
their machine guns at him. Storysignificance is something way different for me when
I'm watching this. When I'm watchingthis, I had to separate those things,

(24:08):
because you're right it we're going toget to the bad section. We're
going to talk about some of thatstuff. But there is a lot that
that really undermines the good heart thatthis movie tries to have and the and
the story that it tries to tell. I mean, I hear what you're
saying, and I is going tobe a lot of people who will enjoy
this movie on those grounds more thanwhatever themes they're trying to explore. I

(24:33):
think for a lot of people,the themes might be an afterthought. I
mean, this is going to havemore success as a guilty pleasure movie than
as a real punisher movie. Let'sbe honest. Oh yeah, Like this
is like a get drunk with yourfriends and get some pizza and wings kind
of. I'm getting drunk right now, so I can't. You can't do.

(24:57):
But look, I want to.I want to try to give as
many sincere compliments as I can beforeI start doing the starkys. I even
turning this to shreds do you sobad? It's good line of praise,
which I'm just getting really tired ofin discourse nowadays. Like I can ironically

(25:17):
enjoy something, but I don't thinkit's worth dwelling on that in a discussion,
Like there's nothing very constructive about thatto me, man, I just
think it's overused, Like whatever happenedto just having a guilty pleasure or whatever
happened to just think in a movie'sgood. If people think it's bad,
you know, I just don't getit. Yeah, look a big pro
that I have for this movie,and this surprised me. I just aside

(25:41):
from one actor that we'll get to, I found the cast to be surprisingly
excellent. There is an Oscar winnerin this movie. His name is Lewis
Gossitt Junior. He had one bestsupporting Actor for an Officer and a Gentleman
and has you know, he's hada great career as a character actor who

(26:02):
doesn't like Lewis Scossa Jr. Hehas the best character in the movie.
He has the best scenes. Ithink a lot of the themes that I
sort of latched onto really came throughwith his character, because he plays a
by the book cop who has alot of sympathy for Frank Castle having been
his former partner, but is alsohorrified at what Frank Castle has become.

(26:26):
And that dichotomy is something that shouldhave really been the heart of this movie,
but it ends up more feeling like, Hey, we really want Louis
Goossa Junior. What can we givehim to do? Right? So it's
it's a double edged sword. Ithink they had a great idea with the
character. But it's not even justhim. I really liked the villain.

(26:48):
Actually, we have a couple ofvillains, but the main woman, the
head of this yakuza clan. Imean, I don't know. I think
some people might make fun of herfor like how over the top oriental they
go with her character, Like sheshe's wearing a kind of Geisha makeup at
the end. I don't know ifthey need that. They went a little

(27:11):
stereotype, they did, But Ithought the actress had a commanding presence.
I thought. I thought too.I thought she was creepy and seductive at
the same time. A really weird. Okay, I don't know if I'm
revealing something about myself, but hey, let's go. Come on, I'm
the editor. I know what Staceyand I so that better thing right there?

(27:38):
Oh man, I'll say this.You know, you talk about the
cast, I think, first off, before I get into that conversation,
the real tragedy of Lewis Gossip Junioris the fact that his number one most
popular movie on letterboxes Jaws three D. But he's not bad in Okay,
he's not He's not bad in that. Do you want to take a guess

(27:59):
on jows three d has on letterboxif he had to guess out of five
two point three one point eight.I will say, though, that I
do agree that Lewis Gosstit Junior isthe best part of this movie by far.
He is a tremendous character in thiscompared to everybody else, and he's
original to this movie, not fromthe comics. Yes, for me,

(28:21):
he was the thing that made thisan easier watch because outside of the action,
there were parts where I was reallykind of thinking, like, oh,
man, Like I watched the firstthirty minutes of this and then I
just took a break for a day, and then I watched the rest of
it. So that kind of showsyou where where my head was at there.
But yeah, I he he wasthe best part of this, and

(28:44):
I'm really surprised they landed him.I know he's done some bad movies over
the time over time, but thisdidn't seem like when they had a lot
of money to nail him. SoI don't know. I mean, you
said they had ten million dollars andyeah, nineteen eighty nine, that is
enough money to get at Lewis GosaJunior for a couple of days. He's
not in very much. He throwsa lot in when he's there and he

(29:08):
gets in us all, yeah hedoes. I mean he's like a he's
a Gary Oldman as commissioner wardon type. I mean, he can take a
character with a few scenes, verylittle screen time and get the most out
of it. He's a pro.And I really don't have anything bad to
say about the acting outside of againone performer who will get to and who

(29:34):
for now will remain anonymous. Ithink the issue that I had with some
of the acting is as you gotto the characters that had had dialogue but
were not major characters, you sortof started to see like the canon films
effect, you know, where thecanon films usually has like one or two
people that are like pretty competent andthen everybody else is like they're not even

(29:55):
TV or soap actors. They arejust like it's like so the director friend
Timmy and he's just like, hey, man, can you come on set.
I'll pay you in pizza, Andhe's like yeah, no, no
man. I don't think anybody stoodout to me as being that bad.
I mean, uh, the Japanesehenchman definitely stood out. Is that bad
to me? I think it isunfortunate the way this movie leaned into stereotypes.

(30:18):
I don't even want to blame theactors there. I guess that's fair
because like a lot of it wasjust them speaking in just the most stereotypical
accents. Ever, I will sayso I won't to see if you caught
this. I don't even know ifyou're gonna find this funny. But there's
this scene where there's the scene wherethe Punisher breaks into this this warehouse,

(30:44):
right and there's these there's these no, no, no no. It was
in the building. It was inthe building at the end of the movie
where the final battle is kind ofhappening. You know, there's the the
high rise, right, and thePunisher takes out this dude, and then
his buddy walks back into the roomand he goes, hey, man,
I got the pizza, and he'sall excited, and then he just gets

(31:07):
absolutely fucking wrecked by the punishment hegets. It was one of the funniest
I don't know if it was intentionalor not. I laughed so unbelievably hard
at that scene because I did notsee it coming. This movie was humorless
up until this point. Intentional humor, humor. I think there was a
lot of unintentional We disagree with youthere. Wait wait wait wait, wait

(31:29):
wait wait, you cannot call thismovie humorless. Okay, that brings me
to my next point. Oh,funny movie. Specifically, I'm going to
say, how did I word this? I'm going to say, drunk thespian
sidekick. Greater than Microchip. Ooh, greater than microchip. Okay, bring

(31:52):
this guy back. I don't needMicrochip around. I need I need this
drunk fuck who hangs surround him withthe punisher and always should rhyme. Now,
I will say I can't. II went a little far saying humorless
because I did laugh at a lotof his scenes. It's he He's one
of those actors too that just hasthe right facials for a role like this,

(32:15):
Like he just he just makes theright facial expressions, he makes the
right body movements, he makes theright hand gestures. I might go back
on Lewis Gossip being the number onein this movie for me, because this
guy would be such a close secondthat he might he might be, they
might be at the same level.I don't know. Yeah, man,

(32:36):
I will, I will relent tothat one hundred percent. He was the
He was the thing that, besidesLewis Gossip, was making this movie more
enjoyable every time he was there,and I didn't expect that from him,
Like he's more introduced to him.In this ridiculously silly scene where the Punisher
has a little remoken through a car, then he he brings to this guy

(33:00):
on this tiny remote truck and thendrives it that the site of a six
something, six foot something Dolph Luengrenwith jet black hair in a leather coat
driving a little RC car was oneof the most unintentionally hilarious things I have
ever seen. But that was intentionallyhilarious. Yes, okay, do you

(33:22):
think you think it was supposed tobe funny that Dolph was using one of
these We had this conversation about anothermovie in this franchise, because can we
be honest and say that we don'tnecessarily record all of these linearly? Oh
no, breaking the fourth wall?Oh that's not fall I don't know what

(33:43):
wall I broke it obliterated. Yeah, but sorry, guys. Look,
there is a movie. I don'tknow if I'll keep that in either,
but I don't think it's a spoilerto say that they go for a very
similar thing and punish a war zoneof alter camp like like like just to
the point of just like you haveto laugh at it. That's the only

(34:05):
response. I hope that's what theywere going for, because if it was,
it definitely got that reaction out ofme. And I have a feeling
whether that we'll see I have afeeling that we're gonna go to war in
that episode. I don't know.I just have this weird feeling. You
don't know because we haven't reported thatepisode yet. But what I will say

(34:27):
is I agree with everything you saidthere. I don't know about the campiness
because it's this it's weird, manLike. Movies from the eighties are so
interesting to me. There's so manymovies that are so unintentionally hilarious. Miami
Connection, you know, basically everythingthat's been on Best of the Worst.

(34:50):
So this is the closest to beingbest of the worst that our show has
gotten. It really has because youthat's the thing, right, this is
this is our blurred Lines episode.I don't know what's intentional and what's unintentional
about this movie that's not blurred lines. Oh, no, the lines are

(35:13):
blurred. Are we going to getsued by the Marvin Gay estate? I
mean, what what's going to happen? Now? Are we going to survive
this? Okay? No, no, no, no, the show's dead.
It's behind a paywall. Fuck them? But what else you got in
the good anything else you wanted tohighlight? Yes? Looking over my notes?

(35:36):
Okay, that's not good, Nerd. I'm just kidding. I literally
take usually takes notes, So nicedenim jacket bro, I wrote, referring
to our villain's wardrobe choice and thethird act as he goes to save his
son. Just gotta you gotta admiresomebody who can rocket and jacket. Now

(36:00):
you know I'm doing that thing right? One half a Canadian tuxedo, you
know what I mean. So whenyou look at the plot of this movie,
it's surprisingly like this is a betterplot than most of these stupid ass
vigilante movies had. I mean,most movies are as basic as a revenge

(36:22):
movie. A movie that comes afterthis film. You know, another adaptation
of this character that we're going totalk about, all right, No,
no, no, I'm talking aboutthe two thousand and four version right where
people look at that and say that'sjust a generic revenge movie. Oh yeah,

(36:44):
yeah, yeah, I see whatyou're saying. Yeah, And this
movie actually comes up with a wholeplot that tests the Punisher's' values. I
found that fascinating. He has tosave the children of the very people that
he's sworn to kill. That isjust the kind of ethical conundrum that I
did not think we were going toget out of this movie. I didn't

(37:07):
think that they would try to attemptanything like it. I would dare use
the word inspired it like anything niceI had to say about the screenplay revolves
around this choice. Because not tospoil things, but a big problem that
I have with Punisher war Zone,right, is that I think it is

(37:29):
very like indulgent in the in thegrossness of the Punisher idea. I think
the punisherism right, So, thismovie actually in an era where it would
have been totally acceptable to make amovie that is just glorifying vigilanteism and glorifying

(37:52):
violence. And I don't mean inthe Nancy Reagan way, right, glorifying
violence. I mean you look atSelvaster Saloon's Cobra, which has scenes dedicated
to it, to just tell youthat the idea of civic rights are dumb.
That is the thesis of that movie. And this movie goes out of

(38:14):
its way to you know, it'sstill a Punisher movie, and it still
comes with all of those conventions,but it actually asks questions. It doesn't
just fall into this fascist ideology,or at least not without some reservation.
Well, it's funny because it's interestingbecause because when I started this movie,

(38:45):
I was confident I was going toget Samurai Cop in the form of Punisher
and Samurai Copp is Samurai Cop beinga movie that I love, by the
way, especially Samurai Cop too,but mostly Samurai Cop One. I thought
we were gonna get a lot ofuh, just ridiculous concepts, a lot

(39:07):
of awful, awful, awful linesfrom every character, a lot of so
bad it's hilarious stuff. And tosee the movie take the story direction that
it did. The fact that youuse the words moral conundrum in a movie

(39:27):
that is that? Is that thatthatuse that this this takes like so much
from Cannon, so much from movieslike that. The fact that you say
that, and that I'm not likelaughing at you and shaking my head,
which you probably should be. NoI'm agreeing with you because it's it's true

(39:51):
the fact that they decided to takethis direction. It shows an effort that
they that movies like this, moviesset up in this way, move that
feature some of the things that arein this movie don't normally take. So
you have to commend that it's interestingthat they took that direction. Yeah,
no, yes, does that makefor an entertaining movie? We'll see.

(40:16):
I should ask, though, doyou have anything to contribute to this section?
I only have this to say,let's go to the bad Wow.
Well see, but here's the thing. You took a lot of the things
that I liked about this movie,and I was in agreement with you on

(40:36):
basically everything else that you said otherthan the point that I brought up with
the action. So I really don'thave anything else that I'm gonna yeah,
pull in. I mean, that'sthe only thing that we even like didn't
necessarily fully agree on either, Soyeah, I mean, and everything else
that you said I agreed with.And there's again, this is a very
short movie, so it's not likeyou can just pull a million things out

(40:58):
of it and say, oh Ilove this, I love that. Now,
even though this is a short movie. It took me so many top
tries to get through this. Idon't know. I don't know if it
was me or the movie. Imean, I've had a long week,
I'll put it that way, soI don't know if I just wasn't in
the mood and never found the rightmood. But I could not get into

(41:22):
the movie. And I'm going totry to be specific. I'm going to
try to justify that it might justbe a preference thing. I'm not a
huge fan of this era of actionmovie. I've been on record with that
before the cheese tastic you know,Death was three type of movie is just

(41:45):
not for me, right, evenwhen I'm thinking about so bad it's good
entertainment. I would rather do likea schlocky monster movie or something like that.
You're not like a like a shockyaction guy. You're not like you
don't have a copy of Out forJustice on your on your movie shelf?
Do you do? You? Yeah? I have ours. We're very different

(42:07):
people, you know. The shlockingmovies that I have. I have like
Wizard of Gore right one, whichis that's a movie infinitely worse than this,
but infinitely more watchable for whatever reason. I got a little bit of
those on my shelf too. Yeahthose are fun too. Yeah, yeah,
I've room in my heart for thesetypes of movies. So I think

(42:28):
if I'm going to start pointing tothings that made it a hard watch for
me, I think an imbalanced tonemight be the first thing I point to,
because there is a struggle with someof the themes they are trying to
explore with you know, them alsopandering. I think, to the conventions

(42:51):
of the time, right, oneliners, we have one liners abound.
Oh yeah, I mean we havesequences that are are there not because of
any logical necessity, but just toshowcase violence. The punisher shooting up that
casino for three minutes adds nothing.You could take that fucking thing out and

(43:15):
other than a little less. Butand maybe that's the works for you.
I don't laugh at those scenes.I just get bored, and I think
this movie has way too much stufflike that in it. But tell me,
I think you had a similar experienceto me. So what do you
think the problem is? It's hardto say. You know, I watched

(43:36):
this in two sittings. I thinkI stopped at exactly thirty six minutes when
I started it the first time.I picked it up the next day,
and it was definitely me like,there's you know, I just have a
tendency to get scatter brained, andI just I didn't want to give a
movie that we're gonna watch for theshow, the lack of attention that I
would I would give a movie whenmy brain is acting that way. So

(43:58):
I just took some time to toreally just step away from it. Came
back to it. I think thisis a movie that you really have to
you have to be a in theright mindset for and b you have to
already enjoy movies that contain a lotof the ridiculous ship that's in this.

(44:20):
You know, what you just describedis a love more for the schlocky side
of horror and not for action.And hey, that's completely valid. I'm
a big fan of a ridiculous horrormovie that just makes no sense. Give
me, give me that movie aboutwere wolves versus bikers, Give me everything

(44:42):
that you can give me of thosejust ridiculous movies. The Trick or Treat
movie from the eighties, that's ridiculous, Give me that. It's getting a
four K, It's getting a fourK release. Dude that's into yeah,
oh, no, huge cult followingfor that. But see that's the thing,
right, It's interesting to see thosetwo sides because action and horror are

(45:05):
very similar in that way. Likeaction, sci fi and horror, you
see a lot of reevaluation of theseterrible, terrible movies that people just have
a ton of fun with later on, But you don't see that as much
with like action movies, I'm sorry, comedy movies, romance movies, movies
that are actually bad. When they'rebad, it's hard to get enjoyment out

(45:27):
of those movies because it's the shlockthat makes these so fun, or the
ridiculous low budget nature of some ofthese sci fi movies. That's what I
think the fun brought to this moviefor me, and why the second time
that or the you know, whenI picked this movie back up, it
really worked for me. But Ithink this movie does suffer in the pacing

(45:50):
department. I think this movie's pacedvery poorly. I thought I thought this
movie would go one direction, andit as I'm watching it, like that's
where they're going. But the waythey're getting there, the way they're getting
to the destination that I thought theywere going to was very strange. And
then they get somewhere. But Ididn't expect I didn't expect Frank Castle to

(46:13):
team up with the mobster at theend of the movie. But it was
an interesting twist. It was aninteresting twist. But as soon as they
did, I knew exactly how itwas going to end, and so,
I mean it was you could seeit a coming a mile away. So
when you watch this, the pacingis just very strange. The way that
they space out their scenes is veryweird. And what they give you in
between the action sequences or the goodstory beats, when the movie I like

(46:38):
to say, settles down, they'renot giving you anything. There's no substance
there. So it throws off theflow of the movie completely because you're invested
only in the parts. That's whyI get what why people call this a
turn your brain off movie and whysome people are probably like laughing at you

(46:58):
and laughing at us for saying thingsabout theme and about story and a movie
that's really just kind of like apopcorn film to a lot of people.
But I don't know, man,DoD you have the same issue with like
the pacing and the way that thismovie kind of progresses. Is that kind
of what contributed it for you?I actually think this movie has a decent

(47:19):
structure, Like if you lay themovie out on paper or if I read
the script even I think it worksa lot better. But there's a problem
with the direction of this movie.I mean, I'm talking the construction of
this movie from the director whose workI'm not familiar with. The thing is,
man, see what I mean,Take a drink, everybody. I

(47:46):
don't know what other word to usethan awkward. I think moments that were
meant to be very dramatic don't landvery well for me. Take the finale
of this movie, which on paperis it's a pretty dramatic, pretty heavy
scene the punisher, after helping amobster rescue his kid, has to kill

(48:07):
this mobster pretty much out of selfdefense. Yeah, and it should be
like a solid moment, but theway was staged and filmed, it was
like not working for me. Itlooks like this mobster was shot under his
armpit, Like he reaches right underhis armpit and that's where he was shot.

(48:30):
And for some reason, to me, I was just thinking, like,
man, that is some bad boh, Like I couldn't take that
moment. Seriously, even though Ifelt like a dick, I thought it
represented something very critical for the movie, for what it was going for.
I do think the direction fails thismovie in a lot of ways. It's

(48:52):
this rare case where the writing wasbetter than the direction in my opinion.
But the direction is really important.That's the person who's gonna bring your story
to life. And I think thedirector probably thought he was making a dumber
movie than he really was. Ithink so. He's much better known as

(49:13):
a film editor than he is adirector. He only has one other directing
credit to his name, which isDead Heat, which is another schlocky action
film. But editing. The dudeedited Terminator two, Terminator, X Men,
Last Stand, Starship Troopers, Halloween, Two True Lies, Commando,
all these movies, Super Mario Brothershe edited Super Mario Brothers and a bunch

(49:35):
of other films. So and ahollow Man He edited Holloman, which I
mean, he's this guy's like ingrainedin our show. He edited The wolf
Man. Dude, this guy islike he was meant to be on this
show. This is why this movieended up here. He was meant to
appear right here. But I willagree with you. I think his direction

(50:00):
fails in this movie in places thatreally needed to be solid. If it
doesn't feel silly, it just doesn'tland. There's this, really there's this
moment that I really thought could havehad a lot of weight to it.
It's it's the last time that FrankCastle is seen in the movie, and

(50:24):
he's just killed this kid's father.Which, by the way, why would
they do the reach under the armpitthing when they could have just put a
hole in the jacket and put someblood on it. That would have been
much more effective. I was soannoyed by that decision. They are trying
to play it dramatic, like,oh, he doesn't realize he's been shot.

(50:45):
It felt like a cartoon. Itfelt like Wiley Coyote realized that there
was no ground under him before hefalls, you know what I mean,
Right it was it was It wasa bit ridiculous. But but right after
that, there's this, like Idon't want to call it an emotional scene
where the kid is like gonna shootthe punisher and the punisher like gets down

(51:07):
on his knee. I actually thoughtthat was pretty well executed for the most
part. Through that, like thekid starts crying and he's got this gun
to the Punisher's head. Yeah he'sreally good. And Dolph lumgrin And one
of the better line deliveries I thinkhe has in this movie is says something
about how pulling the trigger will savehim from what he might become later or

(51:30):
something. Uh, And she doesn'tmake any sense because yeah, I don't
killing the punisher will just make himmore of what his father was, right,
But so he says something like that, and the guns to his head
and the kid like gets really sad, and then he he with nothing left.
The kid puts the gun down andlike sinks into the chest of the
guy who just killed his father,knowing that a lot of the things the

(51:51):
punisher said about his dad are right, but you know that was his dad.
And so there's this like really heavymoment, and then the Punisher stands
up and he walks to the doorand he turns it around and he goes,
you're a good kid, become agood man. I'll be waiting for
you, and then he leaves,and that's the last thing we see from

(52:14):
the character. Why would you dothat? What's your problem with that?
Though? I thought that, no, man, I thought it was the
way that the shot was framed,the way Dolph delivered it, the way
that Dolf delivered it. We're gonnaget it, We're gonna get there.
But everything about that scene just feltsilly to me. It's like you you
just capped the exclamation point. Youwere trying to draw an exclamation point,

(52:37):
and you just somehow fucked it up. How do you fuck up an exclamation
point on a scene that that thatwas solid up until that point. I
don't know. I mean, look, and that's a subjective thing, right,
I mean right, Like I said, the direction of this movie is
wonky. I think you had asimilar experience there. I think for me

(52:59):
that it really worked where he saidyou're a good kid, grow up to
be a good man, Like italmost felt like the punisher was pleading for
this kid to break the cycle.Like That's what I took away from it.
I didn't hate the idea. Ijust thought everything about the execution of
it just failed. I don't thinkI'm really vying for the execution so much
as I am like, this reallywas how this movie should have ended.

(53:22):
I'll agree with that. I mean, I think if they could have done
something, if they could have doneit better. It would have been it
would have been a really great ending. But I don't know because then because
then he kind of goes out onthe building and does like the cheesy eighties
yell for the character even though they'regone, but it's Lewis Cassa Junior.

(53:42):
So work, Oh he does itwell. It's just you know, I
don't. I'm that's the part thatI can stop understanding, you know.
I I that's the part where Ikind of cut it off, where I'm
just like, that's a level ofcheese that's only good in a movie that
doesn't have anything else good about itbesides the schlock and the cheesy nature of
it, you know. And Idon't know, it didn't work for me.

(54:05):
I get it why it would becausehe does do it well. I
just I don't know. Those scenesare always silly to me. I'm not
supposed to laugh at it, Idon't know, and I was. I
didn't laugh at it, But asyou talk about it, I'm like,
yeah, it really was a clicheback then, wasn't it. But that's
sort of how good Lewis Cassa Jr. Is That I'm not thinking about that.

(54:27):
I'm just like very involved with hisperformance and his conspira. He's very
sick. I mean, the relationshiphe has with Frank Castle is tragic.
It's the most tragic thing about themovie. I mean, imagine watching your
friend not only slip away from you, but become something that you hate.
I mean, you know, LouisGussa Jr. Is a cop that actually

(54:50):
believes in the law. And let'sremove this from anybody's opinions about real life
law enforcement. I am the law. I feel like us recording this episode
is me atoning for the sin ofsaying that Dolph Lendron should have been judged.

(55:15):
Oh boy, suck it game.No No, I like, yeah,
I'll just throw it back to youthere, Please continue. I thought
I had some bad I don't getanything to say. I mean, look,
we, I think agree with theaudience and a lot of their criticisms,

(55:35):
so I think we can move tothe ugly. I just say,
yeah that. I think if thismovie had a different director and a different
lead actor, it could have actuallyturned out quite well, at least for
the time. Agreed. Yeah.I think literally, if you take this
script and get different people attached,it would have been so different, which

(55:55):
is not something I can say aboutthe Captain America movie or how Duck like.
This is a rare case where likethe screenwriters, for whatever reason,
I think, put in more effortthan was needed. Maybe they really cared
about the Punish Your character. Isee genuine enthusiasm about the Punisher character.

(56:19):
From a screenwriting perspective, I seewell getting into the audience complaints here.
I see the passion for the characterthat they wrote to be the punisher in
this movie. But I don't seea lot of passion in the things that
the audience would want out of aPunish Your character, which is just staying
true to the source material. Let'sbreak this down. I know you're gonna

(56:39):
have an opinion on this, andI'll have it job to have an opinion
on this, right, and I'llactually have a surprising opinion myself. So
I'd like to hear yours first.Where are you leaning on this? I
want to inform the people. No, I wanted to ask a question,
how different is this version of FrankCastle really? I mean, let's break
it down, and the comics FrankCastle is some sort of ex army,

(57:02):
you know, typically he's with theMarines or some special Forces black ops,
maybe whose family is killed after witnessingsome kind of like a mob hit,
a mob hit in Central Park,which to me is just like, I
know, it's a comic book,man, it's comic books, but man,
like the idea that gangsters would conducta mob hit in Central Park.

(57:29):
Oh God, so this is this. Frank Castle was a police officer I
can't remember what his rank was,and he was taking down one of the
top dogs in the mob world.And this mobster retaliated by trying to kill
Frank and accidentally killed his whole family. Frank becomes the punisher, and from

(57:51):
that point on, the only differencewith the comics to me is that he
doesn't have a skull on his chest, which we haven't even addressed yet.
But that's where comic book movies wereright. Like, even the idea of
putting a skull on his chest,I guess, would have felt too much
like a comic book, would havefelt too silly for the people making this
movie. I've tried to figure outthe reason behind this, and there are

(58:15):
some like kind of there are differentversions, there are different rumors. I
don't know the official story, butto me, this is very much about
the fact that people were so embarrassedto be making a comic book movie that
they didn't even want to give himhis comic book costume. He didn't have
a costume. He had a skulllogo. Tell me what is more cringey

(58:39):
about having a skull logo versus ridingaround on a motorcycle with a leather jacket
and fake stubble. We didn't evenget to the fake stubble. We'll get
there. We'll get there, audience, I promise you will get there.
Just hang in there. This it'shard to have this comic without talking about

(59:00):
the man himself. But I thinksome I think most of the issue that
the audience has is that is thatbackstory park Because in Punisher oh four,
people do have a problem with thefact that they change it, and they
definitely have a problem with the settingof the movie and Punisher oh four,
But the one thing that they cansay about it is that at least if

(59:23):
they change it, it's similar enough. And I don't know that in this
movie it is similar enough. Itdoesn't have any it doesn't feel like it
has any weight to it because ofthe way that it's presented to us in
the audience. That is gonna bea flaw that I have in the movie
that I didn't even put in thebad I didn't even think about, is
that, you know, I know, we're at a point in the story

(59:45):
where that that's not supposed to matter. We know what happened already. We
know his family got killed. Weknow that's why he's the Punisher, we
know his backstory with you know,being a cop that wanted to learn from
this legendary washed up cop who andthen you know, want to learn from
him change that guy's life. Andthen Frank goes off the deep end and
now they're both in turmoil. Iget that part, and that was well

(01:00:07):
executed. But we're supposed to feelthe gravity of this man losing his family,
and I just don't feel it inthis. In both other movies,
I feel the gravity of the situationthat happened. And I think this could
easily be compared to The Punisher warZone, which also did it in a
retrospective way. It doesn't show ithappening. But I think that movie,

(01:00:30):
even though I'm certain, I'm sureyou're not a huge fan of that movie,
wink wink, I can ask you, is that something you can at
least agree with Do you think thatthat movie did a better job of creating
weight and feeling behind Frank losing hisfamily better than this film? Did?
I agree to the extent that Ithink that one performance is far better at

(01:00:53):
handling that. That's another key factor. See, that's why it's hard to
talk about the of the issues becauselet's be real, let's and let's just
let's just address it, you know, because I think this is this is
a point where we really need toget in and do this, and we'll
end kind of anti climactically after talkingabout this. But we have to talk

(01:01:14):
about Dolph because we can't really talkabout how people feel about the Punisher in
this movie without talking about shit withDolph. This is what we've been building
up to. This is this isthe you know, not the epilogue.
This is the climax, right,we have to talk about Dolph Lundron as
the Punisher. It is maybe notthe most infamous casting in comic book movie

(01:01:36):
history, because we've had some doozies, Oh boy, have we. I
mean, I don't think he's likeJesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor levels of miscast,
but no, but he sort ofwas like the number on him was
just can you believe that they gotthis guy to play Frank Castle. It
was just something that seemed laughable onpaper, even more laughable when you see

(01:02:00):
the movie. Here's where I comeat this. I like Dolph underd a
lot as an actor. In fact, I think, if you like,
if I had been around in theeighties and you told me that Dolph Wondern
was gonna play the Punisher, Ithink I would have been curious. I
don't think I would have been sold, but curious. I would have given

(01:02:21):
him a chance, and I wouldhave been very disappointed with the results.
But you know, he's Ivan Dragoand he's gone on to have a career
playing other stone cold badasses. Andlet me say this, he's a badass,
but he doesn't have a bad ass, if you know what I mean.
I said this movie was not wasnot void of embarrassment. That's where

(01:02:45):
it is. Let's give the ladiessomething to look at too, Okay,
and some of the men and thewhoever, if you like, whoever wants
to look at it. If youlike any version of guy ass, I
think you'll be in pressed with Dolf'sass. How many movies have we had

(01:03:05):
so far that has man ass Thisand the Hollow Man are the two that
they are. And Hulk Hulk witha with a with a hint of with
a hint of something else with thethat's still going to be a T shirt.
It's not dare a T shirt.Oh you should not have said you
dare me. I will put aroundin public with that T shirt. Oh

(01:03:29):
no, I'm just going to sendit to you. But uh no,
Honestly, Dolf, on paper,it's funny because I don't have any drink
left. Man, I can't doit. I do I'm just gonna nope,
But I I do mean it inthis case because on paper, he
does seem like somebody who would bea decent version of the eighties Punisher.

(01:03:53):
I mean, think about it,he's got the size once he dyed his
hair. I mean, his looksnot far off. But but there's that's
the thing, man, There's somuch about him that still doesn't work.
And and the fact that they haveto paint stubble on his face. Why

(01:04:14):
does he need stubble? Like thePunisher in the comics never has stubble On
the occasion, He's he's got alittle something. But that's not the iconic
version, right. That's my thingis this. If they're trying to to
capture the essence of the punisher byputting stubble on his face, because sometimes
he has stubble on his face,then put the thing skull on his shirt.

(01:04:39):
It's not that hard. If youthink that's too silly in a movie
with fucking ninjas, then you areout of your damn mind. This put
the skull on his shirt. That'sgonna be a huge chunk taken out.
And by the way, that's noteven something that bothers me that bad do
I love the fact that it's notthere. No, But does it take

(01:05:00):
away from the quality of a movie. No. I've said it many times.
If you want to make an adaptationand you want to do it different,
stand on your own two feet,and I will respect the hell out
of you for it, like Idid with Mario Brothers, like I did
with several other movies that we eithertalked about in private or on this show.
But they didn't do that here.And most of it comes down to
Dolf's acting, his delivery of lines. I don't think he's a bad actor.

(01:05:26):
I just don't think he was readyfor this. He was not ready
to carry a movie that required anAmerican accent. I think it's the accent.
Really, I was studying his physicalityand it's not stellar. It's not
something I would have loved. Butit's not the problem. His line deliveries

(01:05:47):
are just crippled by the fact thathe is trying to figure out this accent
and he takes what should be reallyfunny lines and kind of sucks the life
out of them. That's something Iwanted to bring up. I think The
Punisher has a number of really memorablelines in this movie, like in a
good way. You know, Leuisgossa junior says, man, you've killed

(01:06:11):
one hundred and twenty five people infive years. What do you call that?
The Punisher says, A work inprogress. You can't tell me that's
not a great it's a great It'sa great line. If it wasn't delivered
like this, we can agree.We have to talk about the Sylvester Sloane
of Adult We have to talk aboutthe fact that he must have been told
by somebody to act look and justact like Sylvester Stolone as much as possible.

(01:06:40):
I want to bring something up andyou're not. I don't think you'll
know what I'm referencing here, Butanybody who's listening to this, if you
don't know what I'm referencing, pleasego find it. I don't know the
exact name, but there is aSaturday Night Live sketch in which a character
plays a parody of Cobra and I'llbe damned if the voice isn't exactly what

(01:07:04):
we get from Dolph Langren here.And by the way, the whole joke
of the sketches that this guy islike four foot fucking two and he's he's
like walking around like hey, bubdomissic my girl. That's that's everything that
happens with Dolph in this movie.There are some delivery, there's some There
are some lines in this movie thatare delivered so poorly. I would have

(01:07:28):
looked to the room for a betterline delivery. Not from Tommy Wizz Oh
maybe from Greg Greig was trying inthat movie. Yeah, let's leg at
Yeah, but uh yeah, Iit's tragic to me. It's tragic.

(01:07:49):
It is like this kind of killedhis career in a way. He never
got to lead a movie after this, and Masters of Universe or Masters of
the Universe whatever. Yeah, henever got to lead. He did get
to co lead Universal Soldier. Well, he plays the antagonist. Yes,
I'm on record with loving his performancein that. When he does an American

(01:08:12):
accent in that movie, and itis fine, It doesn't get in the
way of his performance at all.He talks a good amount in later movies
as well. Several times, likea lot of his later movies he's doing
his American accent, and I thinkeven the Expendables he is and can't you
can't hardly tell. Maybe he justhad time to master it by then and
had just like that's how he justtalks. Now. By the way,

(01:08:34):
you still have to see Universal SoldierRegeneration. I'm gonna hold you to that.
But honestly, like thinking on Dolf'sperformance in this movie, the only
thing that I can say is thatthe dude was green as fucking goose shit.
As an actor, he should nothave been put in a position to
be a leader in a role thathad such pivotal delivery of lines because they

(01:08:59):
were well written. But when youput all the weight of it on an
actor who's just not ready there,it's not gonna happen. Well, I
don't know if he's gonna agree withthat or not. I love the guy,
he just wasn't ready for this.I'm sure he's not happy with how
this turned out, and I imagineit did for his career. It's funny

(01:09:21):
now I'm doing it. It's funnybecause we're talking about him like he's an
amateur, Like here's the villain inRocky four, Like he's not right,
somebody that got off the street.Like I don't think it's ridiculous to think
he could have led a movie becauseyou think of him and Rocky four,
and his lines are not only greaton paper, he makes them iconic.

(01:09:44):
I must break you see. Butit's such a different performance he is,
he's he stood out at this pointin time. He stood out as a
villain. That's where he stood out. And even as his career went on,
he stands out as a villain.That's what he's good at doing it.
It's interesting, right because he isa nice guy in real life,

(01:10:06):
and he's a smart guy. Oh, very very smart guy. Yeah.
I've always like had this this sympathyfor Dolph Wonder and it seems like he's
one of those guys that, becauseof the success of an early movie has
had to work around that has hadto either recalibrate or just given to the

(01:10:28):
persona when I think he has alot of talent, and I mean,
he could have been a scientist,like he didn't have to be an actor.
But for a lot of people,he's gonna be that monosyllabic kind of
like stoic poor Man's Sylvester Stallone,and that is not something he deserves.

(01:10:49):
At the same time, watching himin this movie, it's really hard to
defend him. Like I I wasinclined to like Dolf before this, and
nice I am. But what amI going to say that I liked his
performance that I could take it seriously. No, I'm not here to lie
to y'all. Just the same way, I can't say that I enjoyed this

(01:11:11):
movie despite all of the pros Ihave for it, I can't say that.
It's not like I don't like itin a way that I'm mad at
him. I don't like it atall. I'm like, I want it
better for him. I will agree, I will agree, and I think
some of like if you can getto that point where you appreciate this movie

(01:11:33):
as a as much as we don'tlike that argument as a so bad it's
good type thing for his for hislines, you're gonna really have a lot
of fun with what he's doing,which I think is going to be my
approach next time I watch this.But it's so mean. I mean,
you're taking somebody's work and you're justlaughing at it. For me, that
feels almost worse than just saying,hey, I don't think he did a

(01:11:53):
good job. And I'm not sayingthat you don't have the right to get
that experience out of it. Butno, absolutely, a lot of people
think that they're doing actors of favorwhen they say stuff like that, and
they're not. I think I thinkit's ludicrous to think that you can walk
up to any person involved with amovie and say, oh, you worked
on that, man, that movie'sso bad it's good. I mean,

(01:12:15):
there are some examples where, like, I know, the guy from Samurai
Copy did a video with Red LetterMedia. Clearly he's made peace with that
movie's legacy and he maybe even enjoysit. They made a sequel that was
tongue in cheek that I played onthe fact that the first movie was terrible,
and they made a fake so badit's good and not to insult that
guy, but I don't know hiscareer, but Duff Luondern is a serious

(01:12:36):
actor. He's Yeah, he wasin big movies before, and he was
in big movies after. I thoughthe was great in Creed two, right.
I mean that's a movie just fromfour or five years ago, and
he still got it. This tome is an outlier in his career.
But the unfortunate thing is I thinkthis is actually something that kind of for

(01:13:00):
people who don't like him or don'ttake him seriously, this is the movie
why, And what I want totell people is that no, like he
has a lot more to him,both as an actor and a person,
and this adaptation, for whatever reason, it just really did it disservice to
him and the punish your character.Yes, And I do just want to

(01:13:24):
make it clear before we talk aboutone more thing in the section pre wrap
up, this still has a higherrating than Masters in the Universe, so
that the universe is just something I'mnot gonna see, So I wouldn't be
too confident about that, sir.In all seriousness, we do have one

(01:13:45):
more thing to talk about, whichis what I referenced when saying that this
would be a little bit on theanti climactic side. We just have to
talk about one final complaint that Isaw consistently in reviews here, and that's
just that this movie is generic.I don't think there's much to say with
that. Honestly, it is.It's a generic movie. Either that's going
to land for you or it's not. I think in your case it it

(01:14:06):
doesn't seem to have landed with youlike it would with somebody who's more of
a fan of the type of moviethat this is emulating. Yeah. Yeah,
I mean when we say generic,think we mean it really blends into
a specific type of movie that wasbeing made around this time. Yes,
and for some people that is goingto give them a lot of charm,

(01:14:27):
like it's going to be something thatmakes this movie, I guess a time
capsule. It has so much clicheto it and so much a convention to
it. I can see somebody goingback and watching it for that reason.
But if you're not really enamored withthese types of movies, you're gonna be

(01:14:49):
left with the movie that that couldhave been better if it escaped the shadow
of this whole era of I guessentertainment. Yes, as somebody who's been
toying with buying a Cannon Film's Tshirt for several years now, I can
say that the generic nature of thismovie adds to it. For me,

(01:15:11):
I would have had a bad timewatching this if if it wasn't for that
for that point, So I thinkthat wraps it up for us as far
as talking about this movie. Theonly thing left before we get on our
motorcycle with our black leather jackets,slick back hair and fake stubble. By
the way, this beard's been fakethe whole show. I just want everybody
to know that I've been painting thison every single show and you've done a

(01:15:35):
better job than Doll. Yeah,I know pretty good. I can even
make it move a little bit.But I want to know what your final
verdict. Where do you land onthis movie as a whole or where are
you gonna come down what you've beenthinking about this connor you have a trip
to the bathroom to think about thisand ponder. I did. Yeah.

(01:15:59):
The fact that the matter is thisis considered the worst Punisher movie and in
my opinion, and this is goingto not agree with you. In my
opinion, it is not. Itis the worst performance of the Punisher character
for sure, the movie surrounding him. It is. At the very least,
it's like tie. It's like tiedfor the worst. Oh boy,

(01:16:24):
and my god, guys, ifyou want to hear us really dive into
this, just stick around. Imean specifically check out our Punisher war Zone
episode. That's really what is goingon here. It's not the worst Punisher
movie to make. In a way, this actually might be the most respectable

(01:16:45):
approach to the character in movie form. I felt like I had a better
understanding of the Punisher character and whathe stood for and what he stood against
by the end of this movie.That being said, it was not packaged
with the right team. The screenplaywas not given the right people to do

(01:17:11):
what they were setting out to accomplish. We have direction that's awkward, e
lead actor who's hella awkward. Andthe genuinely good things I have to say
about this movie are more sprinkled inthan they are really incorporated in in a
very organic way. That being said, I have nicer things to say about

(01:17:34):
this than some other movies this Inthis I was going to call it a
franchise it's really not a franchise.It's lineage. Yeah, this lineage and
the Punisher movie saga. As muchas that aggravates my co host, I
have no choice but to say thatbecause I disagree with the consensus. It's

(01:17:56):
not that bad. It is notthe worst treatment this movie, or I'm
sorry, it's not the worst treatmentthis character has been given on the silver
screen. Man, anything I saynow is gonna seem like it's revenge.
All right, Okay, here's whereI'm gonna go with this. This is,

(01:18:20):
by no stretch of the imagination,a good movie. With that being
said, I had a lot morefun with this once I got past the
first thirty minutes than I thought Iwould ever have with this movie. I
thought I would enjoy it before divingback in because I thought I had seen
it and I thought I remember nothating it going into it. Though,

(01:18:42):
it was super interesting to see kindof where I landed at the end of
it, because I had a hardtime deciding on a final verdict. There's
kind of two ways that I wasgoing to go about, and I didn't
know which way I should go withit until you said your final verdict there.
Because it helped me kind of placehow I feel about this movie.

(01:19:03):
This is a movie I would revisit. This is a movie that I would
watch again. This is a moviethat I would love to get a group
of fens together with maybe I don'tknow, two six packs, some food,
and just have a good time,because this is what that movie is
to me. I don't want totake this movie as seriously as I think

(01:19:24):
it deserves to be treated, butI can respect the things that it did
to deserve, you know, moreof a look at it like you've given
it. I think this is theworst Punisher movie. I think for me,

(01:19:45):
it's actually by far the worst Punishermovie. But I don't think that
means nobody should go watch it.I think a two point six is a
rating that could easily be a moviethat's just not very good that you go
back to every once in a whileand you watch, and two point six
is almost exactly what I would givethis movie. So I'm going to say
that by technicality, in a verypassive and non aggressive way, this movie

(01:20:10):
is that bad. But it's agreat time and it's a one that I
would recommend anybody go watch. Imean, it's great online and it's a
great time. So yeah, gocheck this out. Can we add this
If you could track down an HDversion of this movie, knock yourself out,
buddy. But if you have tosettle for the fucking version on YouTube

(01:20:32):
that me and Connor had to watch, so so poor even. Yeah,
we didn't even bring up how wehad to watch this, by the way,
because we had the genius idea ofputting this into the show and knowing
that we well, well mostly me, I'll take the heat. Fuck it,

(01:20:53):
dude, I defended resurrection on thisshow. I will take any amount
of heat that I will get.No, no, no, no.
Look, so obviously if we're doinga Punisher special, it'd be weird to
leave this out right. Yeah,and in a way, I'm actually glad
that we included it because I feellike it is so odd not to spoil
things for the audience. But allof these movies have different pros and cons,

(01:21:15):
and I think they get different thingsright. I think you can put
these movies together in a way andget your actual great Punisher movie. In
a way. I almost think theJohn Berenthal movie not movie. He made
a show. That's where we arenow. We're not gonna get new Punisher
movies, we're gonna get shows.But his take on the character and what

(01:21:39):
they gave him is like it's anapproach that has learned from all three of
these incarnations. I do think theaudience for the Punisher show have at least
the more faithful comic book audience,based on what I've been reading over the

(01:22:00):
course of us potentially revisiting these andtalking about them. It's very acclaimed,
but there are issues people have withthe portrayal of the Punisher. I think
if you combine actually all four properties, everything you take aspects of all of
them, you literally have the perfectPunisher property. I mean, maybe the

(01:22:20):
Punisher is a doomed property. Maybeit was not meant to be put on
screen. I don't know, becauseafter four tries, you think they would
have a consensus pick. I'm sureJohn Burnhal is the consensus pick actor.
Like, if you ask most Punisherfans who's the best actor to play them,

(01:22:43):
I don't know. Really, wecover a movie in this franchise,
in this lineage that has an actorthat almost everybody who likes the Punisher says
was spot on perfect for the comicversion of the game, and then you
got weirdos like me who prefer adifferent actor because he is not such a

(01:23:06):
perfect translation. See, it's gonnabe interesting to see where these videos go
for people. I'm curious by theend of this special where people come out,
especially when this does all make itout to the general public. Obviously,
we like to release one of theseepisodes pretty early in release schedules,

(01:23:26):
probably like a I don't know,I think this time will be a week
out. I don't know for oneof them, but the rest of them
people are gonna have to wait for. So it's something that I'm very curious
to see what the response is,especially if they're able to make it all
the way through as a through line, which I'd recommend by the way,
because like, We're awesome, butno, we're not awesome, We're this

(01:23:47):
is a true saga, Like Ifeel like I wait on that adventure talking
about these movies like Spiritual, I'ma different man. We came out of
this as different people. I'm abetter man, yes, and and you
grew to be a good man.So the punisher is not waiting for you,

(01:24:08):
okay, just we turned back tothe movie for a second. The
fact that the last thing the punishersays, is to like threaten a kid
who just watched his father die.This isn't a character. I'm in there
too. I'm just saying because thisis really the time to give me a
lesson, your fucking asshole. Youjust shot my dad. Thanks, motherfucker,

(01:24:30):
you killed my dad via armpit.Okay, let's not. Let's not
turn this into a fucking learning session, all right, Bud? With your
drawn on facial hair, that kidprobably had more facial hair than Dolve did
on this set. Was amazing,Like could he not grow facial hair?
Could Because it's like something about thismovie, like it is so obviously bad

(01:24:54):
that you start to forget about itand then you remember how bad it is
at some point, like it itgets normal, and then you remember,
wait a second, this whole movie, this this guy has had fake the
entire time. I mean, GrouchoMarks is a better fake piece of facial

(01:25:15):
hair god than this movie. AndI guess that's the perfect note to end
this on. I'm not sure,I think so. I mean exact same
experience that I had. It justlike it started like, oh my god,
they really painted on his facial hair, and then it just became an
every day thing for me. Hehad to hire what they did to do

(01:25:36):
this, like somebody had to dothis every day. He was on.
God, I just it's all right, folks. I know we haven't made
this movie sound any more appealing aswe wrapped this up. But I really
do recommend that you check this out, whether you come out on the side
that Gabe is on, where thisis a movie that is not that bad
and maybe isn't even the worst ofthe three Punisher films, or if you

(01:25:57):
come out on my side, whereyou say, yeah, it's the worst,
Yeah it's it's not great, butit's it's a fun movie. Or
maybe you'll come out on either sideand you'll say all of these suck.
This movie sucks. I don't careabout you guys, and I hate you.
Look I hate me too, soI get it. But but in
all seriousness, I want to thankyou for tuning into this episode and and

(01:26:19):
and listening to two ridiculous human beingstalk about a ridiculous movie for a ridiculously
long period of time. Ridiculous isthe word. And let me close up
by saying, I think you shouldcheck this out, not because it's a
good movie or because I think thePunisher is a very cinematic character. But

(01:26:42):
because this is a piece of cinematichistory, and I think if you want
to see if you want to goback and see the history of Marvel Comics
on film, growing pains and all, I think this is a movie worth
checking out as a historical docu entertainmentvalue. I cannot attest to it took

(01:27:03):
me three tries to watch this thing, but there you have it. I'm
glad that I saw it. I'mglad that I finally sat through, finished
it and could log it on letterboxed. That's all I'll say. I think
it's I think it's funny that Icame out saying it was that bad but
that i'd rewatch it, and youcame out saying that it wasn't that bad,

(01:27:23):
but that you did not because specificallyconnor experience. Specifically, I'm saying
it's not the worst Punisher movie,and I think, you know, my
feeling is about some of the otherPunisher movies, and the audience can get
to that when they get to that. Yeah, I think so. I
think for now, though, theycan head on over to not that badpod

(01:27:44):
dot com and check out our website. They can see our entire backlog of
episodes. They can see links toall of our social media sites, links
to our Patreon if you'd like tosupport us. If you're seeing this in
general population of the prison that we'vecreated with the show, you know it'd

(01:28:04):
be great to check it out.If you want to give us some extra
support and throw some dollars at us, you can subscribe at any tear on
patreon dot com slash not That Bad, which you can find on our website
a link on our website under thesupport us section. But we just appreciate
any support which includes you watching thisvideo. Honestly, just sharing it with
your friends could be the biggest differencefor making the show make or break.

(01:28:29):
So thank you all for watching andenjoying anything else you want to throw in
there, mister Tice, before wewrap this up, Before you wrap this
up as you so eloquently do,Iranco, Dolph lunder and second in the
ass ranking of Not That Bad.I was thinking about it. I think

(01:28:51):
Eric Bana is number one, clearlyDolph is number two, and really sorry
Kevin Bacon, but I can't betyou a number three. I see what
you did there, but I quitthe show I'm out. I quit the

(01:29:15):
show. Oh god, Oh,we've gone too far. I quit a
good run. We have no Ican't quit the show. We got two
more emisodes in this in this special, and then I quit. Did not
record that. We've not recorded yet. We don't know what's coming, but
I have a feeling we're in fora surprise in the third episode. Okay,

(01:29:38):
guys, oh ship, if you'restill watching, I don't know what
you are, but I guess,yeah, I guess. I goes out,
go away, all right to yourfamily. We're done talking about the
movie, guys, take a hint. Okay, to make it official.

(01:30:02):
I am Gabe, I am Connor, and this is not that bad saying.
Go back to your fucking lives,keep your lives back. Please.
Thanks for subscribing, y'all. Hie

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The Punisher '89 - Marvel's First Movie (And Bomb)

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The Punisher '89 - Marvel's First Movie (And Bomb)