Special Edition Podcast

Special Edition – Punisher: War Zone

Show Notes

The third Frank Castle movie in twenty years has hit the screen and iFanboy is all over this one. It’s The Punisher vs. the mob and the filmmakers vs. the audience!

Running Time: 00:23:32

Music:
“Hurt”
Johnny Cash


The Summer of 2008 will forever be known as the Summer of the Comic Book Movie. But 2008 is not done yet, it’s got a few more last December gasps up its sleeve and the first is Punisher: War Zone!

Poor Frank Castle, you just can’t seem to make it work on the silver screen, can you? Dolph Lundgren went straight-to-video without so much as a skull on his chest in 1988. Thomas Jane took his vengeance out on… Tampa, FL (?) a mere four years ago.  And now one of the baddest men to ever grace television — Titus Pullo — takes up arms in the third Punisher film in twenty years.

If this one doesn’t work the next Punisher film might just take place in Hollywood.

Are we excited for Punisher: War Zone? Well, some of us have already seen it, so I guess the better question is, are the rest of us excited? Are you excited? And most importantly…

Are you going to see it? Well, of course you ar– well, maybe you are! So let’s talk about it!

If you haven’t seen the movie yet be forewarned — there be SPOILERS ahoy! So don’t scroll down any further if you are sensitive to that kind of thing.

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Comments

  1. Will deff be going to see it.  I enjoyed the last one even though it kind of sucked

  2. Where are all the spoilers? I have no intention of seeing this turkey, so I was hoping to scroll down, but there is nothing below the spoiler warning.

     

    Have any of the Punisher movies taken place in NYC? Seems like that would be the best location for it, since that’s where he lives in the comics.

  3. You have to give people a chance to comment first.

  4. Sorry, but the Punisher never really clicked with me. I read his Spider-Man appearance and Captain America appearance back in the day…I might wait to see it on Netflix. But then, while I liked The dark Knight, I thought it was a bit too dark. Give me a laughing fish and Mark Hamill any day…

  5. I’ll probably skip it unless I hear it’s good.  Trailer didn’t look too promising.

  6. Ouch!  The tomatometer rating for this movie:

    http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/punisher_war_zone/

  7. Sorry, too violent for my taste.

  8. I wouldn’t say I’m excited about it, but I will see it.  Reviews have been pretty bad.  So I’m not expecting much.  I didn’t think the Tom Jane movie was that bad, but I’m not really a Punisher fan.

  9. *sees tomatometer* Uh-Oh….

    Well, hopefully the film is funny to watch with my friends sometime next week. ^^;

  10. I’m a big fan of revenge movies in general so I’m completely excited for this version of the Punisher. His character may be a bit one-dimensional in the films, but as long as they deliver on the action and darkness front, I’m a happy camper. If it looks like a Steven Segal film, then even better!

  11. To me, Rotten Tomatoes isn’t the best way to judge movies like this. Sometimes they’re absolutely right, of course, but other times films are widely dismissed by professional critics because they can’t enjoy the b-movies and theater trash that end up being wicked-fun for me. Maybe I just need to be more discerning though.

    That said, very little about this movie interested me. A few guys on AICN liked it, I’ll wait to hear the iFanboy podcast but I’m not terribly excited. 

    Geez, so far, Rotten Tomaotes is scoring Boogie Nights Punisher over HBO Punisher by double-digits.  I wonder if that number will hold as the review-base for HBO Punisher grows.

  12. Based off of the trailer alone, it looks like should have ended up like the first one.  Straight to DVD and never talked about.

  13. I’m correct in my thinking that this is not a Marvel Studios production, right?

  14. @horation – Correct.  It’s a part of the Lionsgate deal that they struck before forming Marvel Studios.

  15. @ottobott agreed. I just hope there is enough in this movie to enjoy. But then again, after wathing Rome, I’d see anything with Ray Stephenson. I hope this movie doesn’t tank, because I would like to see him get more work.

  16. @Neal – I’ve thought about checking Rome out. All I hear is good things.

    @ Doctorteeth – Yeah, but that’s because I believe Kevin Bacon does that sort of thing on the weekends anyway. 

  17. I might go see this on a weekday just because I’m currently on unemployment so I pretty much live at the movie theatre.  I don’t get my PS3 until Xmas, what would you be doing on days that aren’t Wednesday?

    I actually rather enjoyed the first Punisher flick but I was seven years old in 1988 so all I seem to remember is a bunch of ninjas running around getting shot.  I was actually considering putting the Blu Ray on my Xmas list but I am usually dissappointed when I watch rewatch a movie I haven’t seen in 20 years.

    The one with John Travolta was just about short of terrible.  It was probably worth looking at once, but I definitely wouldn’t pay more then $20 for the Blu Ray edition!!!

  18. I just got back from the theater and can’t believe no one has seen, or bothered to comment on it.  

    I won’t spoil anything, but will say that the ‘marvel knights’ tag in the trailers and before the movie is a great indicator of what to expect.  It’s very violent, like I need to tell you, and exists on a surreal level like that of the comics.  It won’t be a huge box office hit, but I think most fans will enjoy it.

    While not without it’s flaws, it’s VERY Punisher.

  19. It’s okay to talk about specifics if you want.  It’s a spoiler friendly discussion.

  20. Two things.

    1. CGI pencil.
    2. Someone brought their three year old daughter to the movie! Really people, really?

  21. i just want to see a punisher movie where Catsle is Ennis violent.  i want a ball-to-the-wall action/ revenge/ vigilante story.  if it delivers on that level, ill be happy.  who they really need to make a punisher movie, though, is someone like Joe Carnahan or David Ayer, guys who soccer kick the balls of the action/crime genre.  Seriously, you get the guy who did NARC (Carnahan) or Street Kings (Ayer) to write or even co-write and direct a punisher movie and its could just be a punisher movie with break-out potential.  will definatly see this one, though.  i heard a dudes head blows up

  22. I saw it tonight and liked it.  I thought Ray Stevenson was a fantastic Punisher, made to look even better by the ultra hammy performances taking place around him.  Ugh @ Dominic West, Julie Benz, and especially Doug Hutchison.  I get that they were trying to be "over-the-top," but… ouch.

  23. Wow, this was…not good. Like really not good. In fact one could go so far as to say it was bad, cause, you know, it was. Yes it is very violent and Stevenson was good but everything else was really…amateurish. The lighting and editing make it look like a video game or music video, a lot of the dialogue is bad, and the acting, aside from Stevenson, is terrible. Quite frankly it’s not a Punisher film, it’s just another cheesy action film only the main character has a skull on his chest. He never seems, psychologically, like the person from the comics. I think they were afraid to make him too… what’s the word… psychotic seriel killeresq. None of the supporting characters have any depth and I hate the background the give to Castle, Special Forces Trainer? Fuck that. This is a man who was down in the shitstorm it’s important to acknowledge that he’d seen action well before become the Punisher. And the bit in the church? Random, and a terrible spot for it. Also he has no tactics. Even at the end it’s the cop who thinks to tell the russian where he can find Jigsaw.

    So in conclusion; he cuts off a dudes head, uses a rocket to blow up a guy in mid-air, throws a guy onto spikes after kneecaping him, kills a ton of random gangsters, and watches a guy burn to death after stabing him with a steel pole. Wow this movie sound fucking great, it’s a shame that it totally isn’t.

  24. When I was a kid, someone told me the Punisher was "Batman with a gun" and I thought that was cool.  So I started buying Punisher comics.  When I got back into comics Garth Ennis was doing his great run on the character and I picked it up.  Then I dropped the book, when it started not being fun to read.  I tell all this to bring up the point that a good Punisher story does not happen very often.  For whatever reason this character cannot have constant good stories written about him.  The movie captures this problem and runs with it.  In some spots it is a good Punisher movie and other spots it is crap.  They did a good job of having the Punisher punish a lot of people because they are criminals. The beginning of the movie at the mob boss’s house was great.  The fact that they had Frank accidently kill a undercover federal agent made for a good story.  I liked the fact that Frank messed up and killed a good guy. At the end he goes through the hotel without a plan.  WTF!?! He is a war veteran with a tactical mind and he just goes charging in headfirst.  BS!  Overall, the movie was the best of the three but still not a great movie.  Get it from Netflix, not a good idea to spend the money to watch it in the movie theater.   

  25. The posters are brilliant!

  26. ray stevenson IS frank caslte – unfortunately the rest of the movie IS pure shit.

    i was really looking forward to this – i’ve had a soft spot for frank and his antics for years. too much over-the-top gore that would feel more at home in a b-horror movie. horrible acting by almost everyone – and my favorite: jigsaw and his brother silently sitting in a car, "rocking" out to the radio… for a couple dozen beats too long.

    save yourself the time and money and avoid.  i don’t think i would have been okay with having wasted a netflix spot on this. 

  27. well I had to sit and think on it for a while after my original post, but I enjoyed this movie.

    Every reason the mainstream critics will tell you it’s terrible, it every reason I loved it.  There are more head-shots in this movie than there are in a game of Resident Evil.  It’s violent, over the top and pure Punisher.

    If I had to sum it up in one scene (spoiler):  There’s a moment where an FBI agent is attempting to arrest a member of Jigsaws gang Punisher just pulls out a gun and blows his head off!  How cool is that?  I really think it took a lot of balls on the part of Marvel and Lionsgate to make a Punisher movie for Punisher fans that they knew probably won’t make a lot of money.  See it before you trash it. 

  28. an enjoyable movie, and micro and soap were awesome, but you can look at it and see soo much potential in certain moments, and other moments are just…boring.  liked stevenson as the punisher, and thought Jigsaw actually looked pretty cool.  LBJ was funny at first, but became really grating in the last third of the film.  all in all a c+

  29. I keep hearing "pure Punisher" and it just doesn’t sit well with me. Yes, they got that Castle’s whole deal is that he kills bad people. Congratulations to all involved. That doesn’t mean they couldn’t have moved passed that and wrote a good script for it. Even most of the people enjoying it seem to be pointing out gaping flaws. A movie about killing people is useless unless it’s a good movie about killing people. 

    I get that liking it is suggestive, and if you think this is all-around great then I can deal with that, I just don’t understand the "Poor story, lots of dead people. A+!" thing. 

  30. @Horatio

    I kind of got the feeling that part of the reason this was branded as Marvel Knights (other than to give warning of violence, which a lot of regular movie-goers wouldn’t catch) was to help ensure they distanced themselves from Marvel Studios with it. Smart move. 

  31.  As much as I thought this movie would fail to entertain me, it succeeded in doing otherwise. It wasn’t the best film I’ve ever seen, yet I never felt the anxiety that compels me to wish it would ‘come on and get going’ or ‘just end already’. I loved Dominic West as Jigsaw and all the over-the-top violence (when Frank blew that guys head off with the little girl in his arms i’d like to die laughing. oh, and the rocket launcher that totally obliterated the guy mid flip – priceless).

      

  32. hmm i wasnt sure of it so i think im gonna watch it but only go to a matinee showing so i dont have 10 dollars wasted on it

  33. I don’t know why everyone seems so down on this, it’s the best movie representation of Frank yet.   I’ll give it to the naysayers, the story is a little lacking, but for the first time ever they captured the remorse less killing machine Punisher from the comics.  It’s like watching a slasher movie, you constantly are on the edge of your seat, waiting for more people to die, but this time you don’t get any pangs of guilt because the bad people or being killed in cool and clever ways.

    The story does kind of drag, it’s definatly no "Welcome Back, Frank" but  it’s not tedious like the last one was, besides I don’t want a punisher who’s passtimes include drinking and crying,  that’s whay I do.

  34. Ouch.

    WEEKEND BOX OFFICE ESTIMATES (NORTH AMERICA)

    1. "Four Christmases," $18.2 million.

    2. "Twilight," $13.2 million.

    3. "Bolt," $9.7 million.

    4. "Australia," $7 million.

    5. "Quantum of Solace," $6.6 million.

    6. "Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa," $5.1 million.

    7. "Transporter 3," $4.5 million.

    8. "Punisher: War Zone," $4 million.

     

  35. This follows nicely on your excellent video podcast on the Punisher. It helped me synthesize what I know and what I have read about the Punisher and what I haven’t seen in the past (thankfully, I missed the demon Punisher).

    I now think that the Punisher is great in two situations: (1) as a guest star in other books – he works well with a variety of characters, like Spidey, Daredevil, and Wolverine, and (2) in short, self-contained stories – like the early Punisher Max series.

    Although I am aware that Punisher books are consistent sellers, I am surprised that this character has inspired so many films. I suspect that one reason that this title has been licensed so much is that it is easier by several orders of magnitude to film a Punisher book (guns and explosions are pretty easy) than to film a super-powered character like Iron Man.

  36. i’ve never been much of a punisher fan, growing up in the 90s when the concept of what his character was suppose to be was bouncing all over the place it just never clicked with me. My girlfriend whom is a little youger than me, is a huge punisher fan, she grew up in just the right time frame to enjoy Ennis’s work which since we’ve been together she has kindly pushed me to read and I have and enjoyed. I could definately see flaws in the story, but she loved it. And i think at the end of the day she was the target audience. They knew it was never going to be a blockbuster movie, and so they did what all of us has wished for at one time or another, they geared it towards the built in audience with little regard for the casual viewer. So I find it hard to begrudge the movie this.

    That said I think Soap was a bit to happy. 

  37. @Conor – I loved Quantum of Solace, glad to see that it’s still doing well during this slow movie time of the year.  Anyone know if Transporter 3 was any good?  I’d say that the box office was about what I would have expected, considering that this is a slow movie time of year, and I’ve only seen a handful of ads for the Punisher.  I’d guess that the mediocre-to-negative buzz that Punisher will get this week will drive it from the theaters quickly, and onto DVD by the end of February.

  38. Josh, I didnt quite get the joke at the beginning of the podcast….What were you trying to say? 🙂

    Geez, didnt think this film was that bad. But is it really worse then Wanted? I can deal with this being worst then the Shuemaker Batman films, Catwoman, Elektra, and others…..But really, worse then Wanted? To me, unless The Spirit is worse then that film (which judging by the trailers alone it may well be worse) W,anted will be the worst film of the year.

  39. It’s way worse than WANTED.  Way, way worse.

  40. @conor: Well….I wont judge more on that until I see the film. I’m going to see it this week with a friend (who will most likely like this even if the acting or writing is terrible) and then I’ll see if it’s worse then Wanted.

    But if it is just as bad or worse then Wanted….I still think Wanted should be up for worse film of the year, not just comic film, overall one of the worst films of the year.

  41. Mmm, Helvetica…

  42. Oh I get it now. "I hurt myself today. I will let you down. I will make you hurt."

    good one.

  43. The movie was terrible, but I’m pretty certain it knew it. It had the look and feel of a slasher movie that stopped taking itself seriously 4 movies ago (think Jason X). I’m not going to lie, my friend snuck beers in, and by the time the xtreme sports gang guy got shot with a missile, we were sorta buzzed.

    The missile was the moment the whole theater just decided to role with it, openly laughing at the excesses of the flick. Say what you will, I hadn’t had that good a time in a movie in a long time. 

  44. Saw this one on Friday and just heard the podcast. Here are my thoughts:

    I had huge hopes for this film. The posters and the trailer made it look like a fun ride, if not completely faithful to the tone of the comic. What I saw on the screen left me speechless. I agree with you guys almost completely. The good stops at Ray Stevenson. He embodies everything that is the Punisher/Frank Castle.I was willing to let go of the ugly, gaudy set design if the tone was more consistently over-the-top. But it just became really hard to look at. The stereotypes? The little girl? Frank cries?

    Ho hum.

    If Ray Stevenson is around in five years, Marvel Studios needs to hold on to him for a good Punisher film under their total control.

  45. Oh, one more thing. I realized this was a Lionsgate movie during the soon-to-be infamous kill-the-parkour missile launch scene. It felt like a chessy slasher-monster moive shoehorned into the Marvel/Punisher universe.

  46. Great opening remarks. Had me rolling. I will see it on DVD.

  47. I took a sip and the "Teaching Mrs. Tingle" line almost had me spit scalding hot tea all over myself.

  48. I think this podcast may have trumped Ron’s "WHERE’S THE CHICKEN GUY?" X-3 comment.

    I’ll DVD this one.

  49. I actually just finished listen to the X3 podcast.  Josh makes the "Chicken guy" comment.

  50. so bad it’s good? or so bad i should never even see it, even for free, even as a joke?

    just curious.

  51. So bad you shouldn’t reward them by giving them any of your money.  If you need to see it that bad, wait 5-8 months, and it’ll be on TV before you know it.  That bad…

  52. I think the punisher would be better off as an hour long cable tv show with each season composed of self contained 3-4 episode story arcs and one shot stories, where you can tell a story dealing with frank during different points of his life in any order. treat the vibe of the series somewhat like a hard edged charles bronson (death wish) movie. and every once in while included a street level heroe or villian like daredevil, luke cage, bullseye, kingpin.

  53. this movie would have been better had any one of us used a vhs-c handi-cam and shot our own.  i don’t even think it deserves cable.  horrendous.  i really need to watch a good movie, stat!

  54. great podcast on it, though, guys!  it hit EVERY nail on the head.  everything you said was essentially what @DeanWinchester and I said outside the theater after our showing, including the "as an italian-american, i am offended…"  

    worst movie of 2008 – but perhaps the best special edition podcast…. 

  55. All this is making me want to actually watch this movie.  It sounds craptacular.

  56. I like it that the Itrinity complained about the Italian stereotypes in this podcast…..But in the very next one (for X-Men: Noir), they start doing bad italian accents. So the accents in Punisher must be REALLY offensive. 🙂

  57. iTrinity? Uh…

  58. I’m confident the movie is awful, although not the worst film ever.  But you should recognize the historical context of the film.  After the previous Thomas Jane and John Travolta film which took itself too seriously and was too talky for many, they clearly weanted to go a different route.  It’s like you do the complete opposite, and oten times that can lead to problems. 

  59. Going a different direction is fine.  The director was incompentent.

  60. Maybe it was an America’s Sweethearts sort of thing where the director filmed the actors in costume practicing and went to a remote location with the movie and never showed it to the studio 🙂

  61. Biggest laugh in weeks was when Conor yells, "That’s not possible!"

  62. So you’re saying this won’t win an Academy Award?

  63. Marvel needs to buy back this property, self produce it, and fucking put Joe Carnahan on it.  Can anyone imagine a punisher movie written and directed by Joe Carnahan that would just be glory?  Thanks, conor for that quick mention, by the way, on the podcast.  its great to know im not the only one who thinks this way

  64. Since he doesn’t frequent the site, I wanted to mention that my brother emailed me to make sure I listened to this episode because it was "the funiest piece of criticism i’ve ever heard."  He specifically mentioned the "I’d like to read a prepared statement . . ." riff, and I said, "I don’t even know what the context was, but I bet it was Josh who said that."

    In conclusion, I can now name that fanboy from one sentence.

    And, really, great podcast and thanks for sparing me. 

  65. Your brother needs to frequent the site.  

  66. @Paul — I’ll pass that on.  He’s the one who introduced me to iFanboy in the first place, but I don’t think he’s a big forum kind of person.

  67. You know, I think I like it better when the iFanboys don’t like a movie. This podcast was hysterical! Good job, guys!

    I haven’t seen this film, and I won’t be seeing it, but I did frequently read throughout the production about clashes between the director and the studio. At one point, I believe she was fired for a couple of weeks and locked out of the editing room. I’m not sure if that means the studio saw she was doing a horrible job, or if the studio interfered with what she wanted to do. Either way, when a movie has as troubled a history as this one did, it’s never usually a good sign.

    Hey Ron, did it have a "loom of fate" moment? 😉

  68. Great podcast as usual, strange that Punisher gets 7/10 on imdb

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0450314/

     

    coincidentally the same rating as last stand…

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0376994/

    Wierd? 

  69. Oh, and the same as wanted…

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0493464/ 

  70. I loved this movie for it’s sheer crapiness. i don’t think that this director went into the project with any pretenses. In the same way that people intentionally make crappy friday the 13th sequels they made a crappy and awesome punisher movie. me and all my friends were just laughing our asses off in the theatre. with a bunch of friends who dont expect it to be worth anything is truly the best way to see this. so much fun

  71. @TopBun – No one makes intentionally crappy movies that bomb at the box office.  No one who wants to keep directing films, anyway.

  72. Guys, I love you. You’re great reviewers. You do your best to be fair and see things in their proper context. But man to man, between you and me and the fencepost and the hundreds of people who come to iFanboy, I’m a little disapointed in your review of this. I went in expecting the worst movie ever and what I got was an average movie. You guys had some fair crits "weird cinematography" "pick a line of reality and go with it" "weak script" "roll eyes moments" but guys, worst movie ever? That’s giving it a worse rap than it deserves.

    Nah, this was like a Steven seagal movie, except kind of good. I had some laughs and saw some explosions, a few good performances. It’s forgettable. But not god awful. There were some good moments in this. Particularly the action sequences and the lighting. From what I can tell, you guys worked each other up and did the podcast before thinking it through enough. Just a little tip dudes, you’re bias is showing. I’m a little embarassed about it too.

    Here’s my suggestion: Sit on the couch, turn off all the lights, have a beer and relax. Now look deep into your heart, peer into your soul. Is Punisher War Zone really that bad? I mean really?

    OK I’ll stop being creepy now.

  73. See, I gave this review a lot of weight, precisely because the guys don’t just sit around saying, "This *sucks*!" on a regular basis.  (Like some/many reviewers I can mention.)  So when Josh, Ron and Conor all say ‘worst movie ever’ I tend to believe there’s something to it!

  74. Yeah me too Caroline. I certainly disagree with the guys here and there but I always see where they’re coming from and they’ve won over my respect big time. I was just sort of surprised in this case. Still love ’em though! 🙂

  75. Yeah, I haven’t actually seen the movie, it was just a general observation.

     

  76. PUNISHER: WAR ZONE was really that bad.  No bias (what bias could we possibly have?); we didn’t work each other up.  This was one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen in the theater.

  77. I have seen the movie and I believe the guys hit the nail on the head in their review.  This movie was bad, and I mean REALLY bad.  It is easily the worst movie of the year and I just saw Wanted for the 1st time a week ago ( a close runner-up ).  It just felt like one of the those movies that a studio releases to try and cash in on a name with a bad plot, poor acting and bits and pieces that vaugely resembles the source material it’s based on.  It’s kind of like the mid 90s all over again and it should be placed in the same league as The Shadow, The Phantom, Double Dragon and Super Mario Bros: The Movie. It’s THAT level of bad.

  78. I guess I’m the only one that enjoyed the super mario brothers movie…It’s something to see on tv and it’s enjoyable. It’s based on a game where you jump on turtles and mushrooms – I doubt anything else would have been good.

     

  79. I think what made me like this movie more that the Fantastic Fours and Ghost Rider is the weaponry and it’s usage. I really enjoyed seeing Frank change clips – these movies so often use limitless ammo – and I enjoyed the creativity of Frank’s tactics, always a lateral thinker using the environment to his advantage and the movie featured a lot of cool looking weapons. Fantastic Four was just a bunch of gags with no reediming qualities and Ghost Rider was just a B-Movie but not entirely on purpose. Punisher War Zone had some "cool" stuff that were just fun and satisfying to watch and that sort of saved it for me and made me feel like I hadn’t entirely wasted my time. I can see how anyone else might not care about that sort of thing, especially that the story sucked.

  80. Cool stuff with a bullshit story doesn’t do a thing for me.  I don’t understand how people are OK with that, but at least you got your money’s worth, when so many didn’t.

    Also, aren’t you the guy who doesn’t like excessive violence?  Because that’s all there is in that movie.

  81. Yeah, I dig. I see it from your angle better now. And yes I thought this was excessively violent. Didn’t like that. Someone else did pay my ticket. I imagine that changes my perspective.

    I guess I’d rather have cool stuff with a bullshit story than a bullshit story without cool stuff, which to me was what Fantastic Four was. Making Punisher less bad.

    But yeah, it was pretty bad.

  82. I’ve seen worse. I think Catwoman is much worse. This was more like an 80s super action movie.

  83. I’m inclined to agree with slayer here.

  84. Wow. I caught a matinee yesterday and was lucky to find a theatre that was still playing it…but fuck me if that wasn’t a good time at the movies. 

    The Punisher doles out some unbelievable violence in this movie. The chair through the head was a personal favorite. Jigsaw’s transformation scene was unflinchingly gory. Almost as hideous as his his Prince inspired wardrobe. 

     

    Sure I could have swallowed a scrabble set and crapped a better  script but…the Punisher blew someone up, mid air, with a missile. If this movie had come out in 1988 it would have made 300 million dollars. I got my ten dollars worth. Shit, I’m going to buy the DVD when it comes out. They probably have it at Walgreens now.  

  85. It’s in that spinner rack with Danny Kaye movies, and the one with Brad Pitt on the cover that no one’s ever heard it, even on imdb.

  86. Loved the podcast. Now, while I understand and can’t argue with what y’all said, I don’t think this is a bad or as irritating as you say. "Punisher: War Zone" is certainly deranged and I wouldn’t recommend it to a soul but it didn’t drive me up the wall like "FF2" (which I couldn’t get through the first ten minutes w/o ripping the DVD from the player. Twice.), "Elektra" or *shudder* "Batman & Robin" (I still haven’t seen nor plan to "Catwoman" or "Ghost Rider".) Still, I think the worst is yet to come — "The Spirit" — which looks like the true abomination of this year.

  87. There is no way in hell that The Spirit will be worse than Punisher.  Even if the tone is consistently stupid all the way through, it will best the Punisher on directing achievement alone.

  88. @josh – I hope you’re wrong, but I can’t even sit through The Spirit tv commercial.  The furthest I’ve made it is 6.3 seconds.

  89. My devotion to Eva Mendes is actually part of iFanboy canon.  

  90. I loved that moment.

    Paul actually got mad at some random nerd at NYCC.  Granted, he was a douche, and probably had it coming.

  91. @josh – Give them the full story.  The asshole walks up to me and tells me I shouldn’t swoon because he’s seen more attractive starlets walking around conventions.  I try to brush him off politely and he pursues it further.  We were close to the exit and I was ready to take him for a walk.  

  92. "I will fight you."

    Those were the words used, and I’ve repeated them, due to their power.

  93. I was still muttering things as we walked away.  

    "Do not tell me how my heart functions, son.  Walk away.  Walk away." 

  94. I will go further then 6.2 seconds Horatio. I completely turn the channel off if it’s playing a Spirit commercial.

    Punisher might be a bad film (still need to see it to confirm), but I think Spirit will take the cake once I see it. But then again, that’s for yet another arguement for next week.

  95. I know the backwash of this film is over in our heads but let me comment on one thing I have been seeing.

    The commercials for the DVD release actually uses the scene where Castle shoots the parkour guy with a rocket launcher! I keep laughing everytime I see this. Especially when my family sees it and literary says ‘What the fuck?’

    Oh man….what a horrible film…

  96. Having a bad day and this podcast never ceases to make me smile. Thanks, guys!

    -J.

  97. I heard Josh mention that “Punisher” was way worse than “Jonah Hex” and that led me here to see if he meant the Jane movie or this. Turns out it’s this one. I’m still not sure which is worse, but after hearing Lexi ALexander on “How Did This Get Made?” you’ll forgive her at least a little bit… Check it out…

    http://www.earwolf.com/episode/punisher-war-zone/

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