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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
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66
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59
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34
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xx
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54
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77
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76
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79
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40
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69
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64
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69
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69
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You, the Living
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Punisher, The
EMAILPRINTLions Gate Films Inc.

Generally unfavorable reviews
Based on 36 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 66 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Action | Adventure | Suspense/Thriller
Written by:
Michael France
Jonathan Hensleigh
Directed by: Jonathan Hensleigh
Release Date:
Theatrical: April 16, 2004
DVD: September 7, 2004
Running Time: 124 minutes, Color
Origin: USA / Germany
Summary
RATING: R for pervasive brutal violence, language and brief nudity
Starring Thomas Jane, John Travolta, Laura Harring, Samantha Mathis, Will Patton, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Roy Scheider, and A. Russell Andrews
Marvel's unstoppable vigilante hits the big screen. After losing his family in to mob violence, undercover FBI agent and former Marine Frank Castle (Jane) decides to dedicate himself fully to the eradication of crime from America.
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Among the recent spate of comic-book movies, from "Spider-Man" to the "X-Men," The Punisher is unique.
Read Full Review >USA Today Mike Clark
Trashy and disturbingly violent yet fairly zippy and amusingly cast.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan
Unlike some of its recent ilk "Spider-Man," for example The Punisher is, no disrespect, a thoroughly morose and bilious affair. That is precisely what I like best about it.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
Considering the horrible buzz that had dogged the movie since its trailers first premiered, The Punisher turns out to be a likable underdog.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach
The Punisher punishes. That's what he does, and that's all this movie does.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
That rare comic book movie that actually feels like a comic book. Which turns out to be mostly, but not entirely, a good thing.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
The most entertaining scenes focus on the lovable louts and losers who share the boardinghouse where the protagonist - based on a comic-book character billed as a superhero without superpowers - prepares his grisly exploits. The rest is mayhem.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
The second attempt to bring a dark corner of the Marvel comic-book universe to the screen, this comic-book-based revenge story is undermined by its inconsistent tone.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer David Hiltbrand
For such a formulaic vigilante film, The Punisher has a far better cast than it deserves.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Carla Meyer
It's a prevailing sense of humor that makes this an entertaining, if silly, film adaptation of the Marvel comic.
Read Full Review >New York Post Jonathan Foreman
Travolta is terrific as a bad guy, making Saint almost sympathetic. His co-stars however, flounder in a sea of bad lines, with poor Romijn-Stamos getting stuck with the worst.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
The Punisher is so grim and cheerless, you wonder if even its hero gets any satisfaction from his accomplishments.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
There's something to be said for letting a comic book adaptation operate at the level of a comic book--i.e., with cheap laughs and ice-cold sadism.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
It's hard to imagine how anyone could sit through this thing except squirming critics and violence addicts in need of a particularly gruesome fix.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen
A tone-deaf muddle that shifts moods more often than its lone wolf vigilante rubs out bad guys, clocking in at a punishingly paced two hours and change.
Read Full Review >Variety Joe Leydon
Fires blanks. Thoroughly routine, pic plays like a paint-by-numbers pilot for bygone basic-cable teleseries.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar
The movie lives up to its R rating in the final scenes, but its too little too late.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Benjamin Strong
With topical revenge fantasies already available (Dogville, the Kill Bills) and with Roy Scheider on hand as a gun-loving paterfamilias, The Punisher mismanages its greatest asset: an unusual embarrassment of camp riches.
Read Full Review >Empire Chris Hewitt
A creaky script which avoids tackling the morality of Castle's actions, while Hensleigh doesn't do himself any favours by slowing the film's momentum with leaden editing.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Punishes the audience with a flat starring performance; Mr. Jane finds few sparks of life in a hero who wasn't all that lively to begin with.
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Stephen Cole
An overemphatic revenge fantasy devoid of even a trace of excitement or wit.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jami Bernard
It features an insane amount of violence and a number of visual references to the comic, but it lacks the original's humor and spirit.
Read Full Review >Premiere Aaron Hillis
From an audience perspective, the titles fairly apt as well.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
The Punisher isn't Frank Castle; it's Jonathan Hensleigh. And the punishee is anyone sitting in the audience.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps
Sadly, The Punisher is about little more than bullets hitting bone, and how good it might feel to be on the right end of a gun.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Dana Stevens
Its lack of subtlety is clearly a point of pride, and Mr. Hensleigh's flat-footed, hard-punching style has a blunt ferocity that makes "Kill Bill" look like "In the Bedroom."
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
If you can get past the goofy writing, there's lots of noisy action in The Punisher, but little of it is particularly exhilarating. In fact, it's more of an endurance test. If you can sit through it, you should consider yourself duly punished.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Wesley Morris
The movie is as grim and grave as the comic book. But it lacks atmosphere. It's often illogical and drubs you numb with its single dimension: noisy retribution.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Robert K. Elder
In a case study of how to screw up a simple, powerful revenge story, director Jonathan Hensleigh punishes audiences with an unbearably sluggish action movie that requires the word "action" to be placed in quotes.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Scott Foundas
As bad as the movie is, when it tries to be funny -- a hired killer who sings to his victims, a fat man named Bumpo, and an interminable fight scene choreographed to La donna è mobile -- it somehow manages to get several degrees worse.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky
The Punisher would be almost offensive were it not so inconsequential. There's just something terribly off-putting about a movie in which every gruesome death is a punch line, where a villain's homosexuality is used to lure him to his death and dozens of innocents are gunned down just to launch a film franchise.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
The Punisher is a moronically inept and tedious piece of death-wish trash.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell
It actually makes the 1989 version (starring Dolph Lundgren) look pretty good by comparison. Oh, yes. It's that ghastly.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
Don't hold your breath waiting for The Punisher to be original, not for one second of its torturous two hours.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
The Punisher is such a bad film that it becomes inadvertently entertaining; its enough to make you pine for the original version of the black-clad Marvel Comics badass, played to awful imperfection in 1989 by Dolph Lundgren.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 6.4 (out of 10) based on 66 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Iain F. gave it a7:
Okay, this film ISN'T original, we get that. But nowadays, most films aren't! Yes it's clichéd, yes it's repetitive, yes it's predictable, but to be honest, I don't care. The action and violence is top-notch, and I don't know, something about vigilantes on quests for revenge and vengeance really gets me FRIGGIN' STEAMING. Films like The Brave One, Death Sentence, heck, even Batman to a certain degree. Thomas Jane was brilliant, John Travolta was good and believable and if you give this film a 0? Shame on you. That is harsher than harsh. The cinematography is shit I will admit, and alot of the bad guys, dialogue, the plot is clichéd but once again, I'm resorting to the famous WHO CARES? The plot isn't smart, the characters aren't smart, it's not realistic, it doesn't go into detail on the character of The Punisher enough and there are ALOT of inconsistensies with the film and the comic book, but at the end of the day, it made me laugh, and most importantly, it entertained me. Bravo douche bags for rating it so low, this film is worth watching.
c n gave it a10:
I really enjoyed this film. It wasn't made to impress critics with high expectations who've never read the comic and give harsh reviews. Behind the violence, justified by the actions the mob took against Castle, there is a story. This movie was based on a comic and stays loyal to it. If you're not a fan of the comic or action films, instead of trying to figure out reasons to hate it try and commend what the director and actors have brought forward. This film stays a lot more loyal to the comic than the 1989 film. The atmosphere of the comic is well recreated and and isn't just typical Hollywood bullsh*t.
Alisa H. gave it a7:
This movie wasn't as horrible as critics made it out to be. It was full of action, which was good, Thomas Jane was a great fit, which was also good (even though he's not coming back for the sequel), I really liked this movie simply because I saw it as a "Marvelized" Batman. Tragedy, by seeing his loved ones shot down in front of him and then taking action not particularly for vengeance but as the Punisher says, "True Justice". I say if you like Batman, then you may like this movie and of course if you're a fan of the Punisher you'll like this movie. Enough said.
Pat C. gave it a6:
A typical tale of vigilantee revenge that works because of the commitment of the actors to their roles.
Dan gave it a1:
If you didn't see every single mind-numbing piece of "action" coming from a mile away, then you are some kind of retarded half-man, half-monkey hybrid. There is not one second of this movie that is not a cliche, there is not one line that hasn't been done a thousand times before - and better. The hero's final plan is to just walk into the gunfire and hope the script doesn't care if he gets shot. Naturally, it works. Insultingly stupid. Everyone who gave this more than 6 is a waste of skin who should be harvested for their transplant organ value.
ed l gave it a9:
The problem with this movie was the marketing... After seeing the trailers I had no interest in watching this movie... Now, a year and a half after it came out, I finally watched it and must say that it is a good movie. The marketing team should be fired because the trailers turned me and probably the rest of the world away from this pretty good comic book movie. It's not as good as Spiderman, Batman Begins, or X-Men, but it's better than Hulk, Daredevil, Fantanstic Four, and Electra! Definitely worth watching and I am now looking forward to the sequel. Hopefully they continue with the same director style.
James A. gave it a5:
The only good thing about this movie is Thomas Jane's unbelieveably beautiful body. If he had taken off his pants I would have given it a 10.
