I saw the Punisher a few weekends ago when it opened and never got around to writing about it. Marvel managed to adapt one of my favorite comic book antihero to the big screen (for the second time) without doing too bad of a job. The film was not a masterpiece nor was it a train wreck.

The Punisher is an action film and exhibits most of the forgivable flaws of that genre. The dialog was bad. The bad guys, while trained killers and assassins, can’t seem to hit the broad side of a bus. The hero takes a point blank shot the chest and lives. All that was missing were a gang of ninjas to battle only one at a time.

I thought the acting was quite good in spite of the bad dialog they had to work with. I thought they could have played up the Punisher’s angst more. In the comic he came across as a character who becomes an almost psychopathic all-out executioner driven by his rage and desire for revenge. The movie paints the character more as “a kind of angry guy” who drives around seeking a slow and subtle revenge against his enemies. It seemed kind of hard to believe that if given the chance to kill the people responsible for murdering your entire family ( I’m talking mother, father, aunts, uncles, wife, kids, ugly cousin, and all the rest) that you wouldn’t jump at the first opportunity you got and instead would go all Count of Monte Cristo and weave a long and elaborate plan of revenge.

I thought the violence would be toned down; however, I was surprised at the brutal, harsh, and realistic way it was depicted. The movie was entertaining and enjoyable but defiantly not something you leave the theater laughing about. Was it great? No, but it was better than the prior 1989 adaptation and some of the recent Marvel movies such as the Hulk and Daredevil.

I’m off to see Van Helsing tonight and I hope to not be disappointed.