Now Playing
Critics & Publications
Archives: A-Z Index
Advanced Search

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

sort by name

sort by score

38 12 Rounds
48 17 Again
76 Adventureland
48 Angels & Demons
54 Battle for Terra
xx Bruno
80 Coraline
40 Dance Flick
83 Drag Me to Hell
72 Earth
45 Fast & Furious
61 Fighting
34 Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
72 Gran Torino
73 Hangover, The
47 Hannah Montana: The Movie
51 Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
54 Imagine That
41 Knowing
32 Land of the Lost
56 Monsters vs. Aliens
34 My Life in Ruins
51 My Sister's Keeper
46 Next Day Air
42 Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
54 Observe and Report
25 Obsessed
48 Proposal, The
70 Public Enemies
61 Soloist, The
83 Star Trek
64 State of Play
55 Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, The
52 Terminator Salvation
35 Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
77 Under the Sea 3D
88 Up
43 X-Men Origins: Wolverine
34 Year One

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

sort by name

sort by score

67 $9.99
75 24 City
66 Adoration
74 Afghan Star
48 Alien Trespass
56 American Violet
82 Anvil! The Story of Anvil
57 Away We Go
81 Beaches of Agnes, The
62 Big Man Japan
28 Big Shot-Caller, The
78 Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
55 Brothers Bloom, The
82 Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
xx Call of the Wild
63 Cheri
62 Cherry Blossoms
63 Dead Snow
65 Departures
18 Downloading Nancy
58 Easy Virtue
70 End of the Line, The
77 Every Little Step
64 Examined Life
80 Food, Inc.
38 Gigantic
56 Girl from Monaco, The
67 Girlfriend Experience, The
87 Gomorrah
89 Goodbye Solo
63 Great Buck Howard, The
79 Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
xx Home
82 Hunger
91 Hurt Locker, The
16 I Hate Valentine's Day
81 Il Divo
54 Is Anybody There?
71 Jerichow
58 Julia
74 Lemon Tree
36 Life is Hot in Cracktown
40 Limits of Control, The
42 Little Ashes
64 Lymelife
50 Management
57 Merry Gentleman, The
66 Moon
35 New York
62 Not Forgotten
xx Offshore
78 O'Horten
64 Outrage
40 Paris 36
54 Pontypool
71 Pressure Cooker
52 Quiet Chaos
83 Revanche
67 Rudo y Cursi
86 Seraphine
65 Sex Positive
70 Shall We Kiss?
77 Sin Nombre
59 Sleep Dealer
74 Song of Sparrows, The
54 Stoning of Soraya M., The
82 Sugar
84 Summer Hours
61 Sunshine Cleaning
28 Surveillance
42 Tennessee
63 Tetro
64 Throw Down Your Heart
80 Tokyo Sonata
63 Tokyo!
70 Tony Manero
74 Treeless Mountain
88 Tulpan
74 Two Lovers
83 Tyson
83 U2 3D
60 Under Our Skin
69 Unmistaken Child
69 Valentino: The Last Emperor
22 What Goes Up
45 Whatever Works
57 Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Punisher, The
Lions Gate Films Inc.


6.4

based on 36 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 66 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA 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.

GENRE(S):	Action \| Adventure \| Suspense/Thriller
WRITTEN BY:	Michael France Jonathan Hensleigh
DIRECTED BY:	Jonathan Hensleigh
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: September 7, 2004 Video: September 7, 2004 Theatrical: April 16, 2004
RUNNING TIME:	124 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA / Germany

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.

USA Today Mike Clark

Trashy and disturbingly violent yet fairly zippy and amusingly cast.

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.

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.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

The Punisher punishes. That's what he does, and that's all this movie does.

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.

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.

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.

Philadelphia Inquirer David Hiltbrand

For such a formulaic vigilante film, The Punisher has a far better cast than it deserves.

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.

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.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The Punisher is so grim and cheerless, you wonder if even its hero gets any satisfaction from his accomplishments.

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.

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.

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.

Variety Joe Leydon

Fires blanks. Thoroughly routine, pic plays like a paint-by-numbers pilot for bygone basic-cable teleseries.

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

The movie lives up to its “R” rating in the final scenes, but it’s too little too late.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Premiere Aaron Hillis

From an audience perspective, the title’s fairly apt as well.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

The Punisher isn't Frank Castle; it's Jonathan Hensleigh. And the punishee is anyone sitting in the audience.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

Slate David Edelstein

A sickeningly manipulative, by-the-numbers revenge movie.

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.

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.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

The Punisher is a moronically inept and tedious piece of death-wish trash.

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.

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.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

The Punisher is such a bad film that it becomes inadvertently entertaining; it’s 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.

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.

Punisher, The Lions Gate Films Inc.

Punisher, The
Lions Gate Films Inc.