The Punisher: Critic Reviews

A moronically inept and tedious piece of death-wish trash.

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.

Trashy and disturbingly violent yet fairly zippy and amusingly cast.

This whole movie seems to be a cry for help -- or I should say, punishment.

The pleasure we take in [the Punisher's] inability to resist his basest instincts is like taking a bite of deliciously dark chocolate: probably bad for us, definitely bitter, but still sweet and stimulating.

Thrill-less garbage that aspires to franchisehood.

Mismanages its greatest asset: an unusual embarrassment of camp riches.

Tom Jane is a great-looking Punisher, darkly handsome and chiseled, even if the movie goes nowhere with the character.

An uneven yet workable mix of deft humor, slam-bang action and colorful pulp-novel punch.

For an action movie written and directed by a guy who has written a lot of lively flicks, The Punisher is surprisingly inactive, full of long, slow stretches punctuated by perfunctory car chases, shoot-outs and-or fist fights.

Hensleigh, co-writer with Michael France, makes the paint-by-numbers of organized-crime movies look fresh by tapping good actors and sleek camera work.

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

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.

There's something to be said for letting a comic book adaptation operate at the level of a comic book, dispensing cheap laughs and ice-cold sadism.

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

In this by-the-numbers payback melodrama, even the explosions seem half-hearted.

A flatline affair from beginning to end, The Punisher is painfully dull, offering no characters, actions, scenes or special effects of note.

A ridiculously violent revenge story with no redeeming value.

There isn't a moment in The Punisher that isn't borrowed or stolen from another movie.

Pic plays like a paint-by-numbers pilot for bygone basic-cable teleseries.

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.

It may be pulp, but at least it's good solid pulp.

The graphic nature of the violence that makes The Punisher hard to recommend without serious caveats.

An overemphatic revenge fantasy devoid of even a trace of excitement or wit.

Gets us lost early in the first half-hour and never succeeds in completely luring us in.