The other night we picked up The Punisher on DVD.
As I giddily ripped through the packaging and loaded up our new copy faster than it took my husband to pick up the remote, it occured to me that he may think I’m a little wierd for liking the movie as much as I do.
“I can’t believe you like the Punisher.”
Now, I don’t know if that means “oh my god, this is SUCH a lame movie”, or “I never would have expected you to like an action movie.” But because he sat through it with me twice, laughed at all the funny parts, and was the one to pick it up at Best Buy saying, “we should get this” – I’m going to go with the a latter interpretation.
Its packed with goons and two-dimensional characters, big shiny guns, long flapping leather coats, whacked out Memphis blues singers, monster-truck-jumping-boat-flipping-motorcycle chases, guys stabbing other guys, melted faces, and the general observation that everything that can be blown up, will be blown up. It’s all guns and blood and leather.
And it’s all Thomas Jane. Lots and lots of Thomas Jane. I saw The Punisher in the “woah, that guy’s head’s as big as my house” section of the theater on opening day and after 70 minutes of shirtless Tom I thought I was going to lose…well, nothing I wouldn’t mind losing. This was hands down, the best eye-candy I had ever watched.
Beef. Cake. Babe-o-licious. Hey Daddie-o. I almost drooled.
And this was a real ephiphany for me, because honestly? I thought the whole “action movies are full of sex & violence because people love it” was a load of bunk. Mostly, my take on the writers who produced aforesaid material was that they’re really lazy and really repressed. The same could be said for the folks who watch it. But I suspect that was because those movies seem to be geared towards men, so you get the guns, bombs, and half naked women. And half naked women? Not so interesting to me. Half naked Tom? I get that.
The Punisher is a stupid action movie that gives a fair clever stab at not only having a plot, but playing faithfully off the actual Marvel storyline. They lend some depth to at least most the characters and also manage to instill a dark yet goofy sense of humor. And somehow it works. It’s seriously FUN.
Before and after you watch it.
Hey honey, is that a sawed-off shot gun, or am I just happy to see you?
© 2004, jules.maas. All rights reserved.
