The Punisher (2004)

The Punisher (2004)

Release Date: April 16, 2004

Next up is the Marvel Universe’s resident gun nut, The Punisher. Given the character's status as an anti-hero, it may not be a surprise to learn that his film is inspired by the likes of Death Wish.

Frank Castle is a police officer who works undercover at sting operations. Because of his line of work, he and his family are required to move frequently for their safety, and this time the family are moving to London, but before then, they’re going to a family reunion in Puerto Rico. However, this holiday is set to be ruined, not by misplaced plane tickets or overbooked hotels, but by nasty mob boss Howard Saint. Frank’s last sting operation ended in a shootout in which the target, Howard’s son Bobby, was killed, and the grieving parents want revenge, which they get by crashing the reunion and killing everyone there.

Fortunately, Frank is harder than a titanium rhinoceros and is able to survive being shot several times, beaten, then left to die on a pier doused in petrol and set alight. After being nursed back to health, Frank returns to the house his family was staying in to take a skull shirt his son had given him as a gift and his father’s antique pistol collection. The guns are added to Frank’s impressively sized collection at home, which he kept as souvenirs of his time fighting in the Gulf War. (The film is set in the present day, so his backstory was updated slightly from the comics, where he fought in Vietnam instead.) After learning that no one was imprisoned for the attack on his family, Frank decides to take matters into his own hands, and do to Howard Saint what Saint did to him.

As the Punisher, Frank sets about getting a mole among Saint’s ranks, ruins his money laundering operation, which severs Saint’s ties with the Cuban gangsters whose money he was handling, and framing Saint’s wife as having an affair with Saint’s best friend, who is a closet homosexual. When he isn’t working, he’s living in a grotty apartment drinking and trying to avoid contact with the apartment’s other residents, troubled waitress Joan, Dave, whose face is full of piercings and Bumpo, an overweight man who enjoys cooking and listening to classical music. Frank grows closer to the trio despite himself when they ask for his help throwing out an abusive ex-boyfriend of Joan’s who threatens her with a knife one night. Upon learning that Frank Castle is alive, he sends two assassins to kill him. The first one plays some country music on his guitar before attacking.

Sadly, his guitar case doesn’t have guns in it.

The second is a mountain of a man, known as the Russian, who interrupts dinner to hand Frank his ass on a platter. He is defeated when he tries to strangle Frank too close to the stove, allowing Frank to grab a saucepan full of boiling water and throw it in his face before pushing him down the stairs. Howard Saint snaps when Frank finishes his affair ploy, leading Saint to stab his friend and throw his wife off a bridge into the path of an oncoming train, with neither of them having any idea what they were supposed to have done, since Saint was in a murderous rage and refused to explain anything. Remember kids, poor communication kills. The mob come to the apartment in search of Frank, but he is hidden by Dave, who refuses to tell the baddies where he is, despite having his piercings pulled out with pliers.

To finish his revenge, Frank heads to Saint’s nightclub and kills all the mobsters there, as well as Howard’s other son, John Saint, who is forced to hold up a mine in his hand without lowering his arm, otherwise the mine will explode. His arm gets tired fast. Eventually, only Howard Saint remains. He has lost everything, just as Frank Castle did. The only thing left to take is his life, and the Punisher takes it in as show-offy a way as possible. Specifically, he ties Saint to the bumper of his car by his legs, and sets it to roll into the nightclub car park, where the cars have been wired to explode in the shape of the Punisher’s skull emblem.

 Imagine it combined with the finale of the 1812 Overture. Fun times!

The film is going for a darker tone than past Marvel films, which is appropriate for the Punisher as an anti-hero who battles the good guys almost as often as the bad guys at times. However, this film does a better job of sticking to the darker tone than Daredevil did, due to the toning down of the sillier elements, and reining in suspension of disbelief. The only real concession towards comic book excess are the climax, which is admittedly pretty cool, and the origin story being turned up to 11, which doesn’t work quite as well. In the comics, only Frank’s wife and son were killed, due to their being witnesses of a mob hit. Giving the villain a more active role in the origin works for the film, since the Punisher has few recurring enemies due to his tendency to kill them, but the killing of everyone in his family threatens to take the focus away from Frank and put it on the villains. Fortunately, the film is wise enough to keep the focus on Frank’s wife and son in this scene, because the audience isn’t going to sympathise that much more for Frank losing a number of extended family members who don’t appear outside this scene in addition to close family. Apologies to Great Aunt Prudence Castle, a haggard old crone of 97, the type who’s lived at least a decade too long and seems to leave the retirement home only for family get-togethers where she complains about political correctness while saying racist things about the black lodger the Parkers next door had for a week in August 1952.

Another point of note is the Russian, who is very different personality wise from his portrayal in the comics. Normally, I would complain about this and ask why didn’t the filmmakers use a more obscure but better fitting character instead, but this time I’ll make an exception. In the comics, the Russian is a very silly character, a childish man who speaks broken English and loves America and capitalism despite supposedly being a communist. His understanding of communism can be summed up with “Thor is a communist because he has a big hammer.” In his downtime, he is the head of the Daredevil fan club, Smolensk branch, and wears women’s clothing. He’s pretty much Heavy from Team Fortress 2 as a superhero fanboy. That description should have made it clear that a faithful portrayal of the character wouldn’t fit the mood of the film at all.

  See what I mean?

This is not to say that it’s all doom and gloom a la Hulk, though. There is the odd bit of humour, but it’s black humour in keeping with the comics. The best example would be the scene in which Frank tortures his mole by hanging him upside down from the ceiling, describing in great detail the sensation of a blowtorch applied to human skin, then using it to cook a steak while rubbing an ice lolly on the man’s back. “Isn’t science fun, Micky?”

Thomas Jane puts in a good performance in the lead role, able to portray both the loving family man and the hardened vigilante. Despite all the terrible things he does, he never quite falls into being unlikeable or unsympathetic. Seeing his interactions with his neighbours helps humanise him, making him more than a man with a gun. Speaking of guns, the action element is surprisingly downplayed, with action scenes tending to be quite short for the most part instead of bullets all over the place. The action scenes are quite satisfying nonetheless. To conclude, your enjoyment of The Punisher will likely depend on your feelings towards action films. If you enjoy them, there might be something to your liking here. If not, being adapted from a comic book character probably won’t be enough to change your mind.

Next Time: Oh my God, it’s Alfred Molina!

Bonus: A sequel was planned, but after an extended stay in Development Hell, it became a reboot, Punisher: War Zone instead. Fortunately, the tie-in game on PS2 and Xbox served as a sequel to this film. In the game, John Saint was revealed to have survived the mine explosion, but it destroyed his face, leading him to become Jigsaw and break into Stark Tower to steal a suit of Iron Man armour. Frank wins and kills him properly this time, thus answering the question of who would win in a fight between the Punisher and Iron Man. Other bosses included the Russian, who was now more in line with the sillier incarnation from the comics, Kingpin, Bullseye, and Bushwhacker.

Hulk (2003)

Hulk (2003)

Release Date: June 20, 2003

I was only 10 years old. Spider-Man had just come out at the cinema, but due to the film’s 12 rating, I was too young to see it at the time. Salvation came when a friend revealed that they had a bootleg video of the film and let me watch it. The video had a trailer for this film on it.

I was hyped. Summer 2003 couldn’t come soon enough! When Summer 2003 arrived, I was first in line at the cinema. Imagine my disappointment when the finished film failed to live up to the trailer's promise. The world didn’t make sense to me anymore. Up was down, black was white, I had no idea what was happening. Two years later, I realised that I could not go on like this any longer, and so, I ended my life…

OK, that’s a gross exaggeration of what actually happened. I did not commit suicide over this film, otherwise how would I be able to write about it here? (I guess I could be a ghost writer... Ba Dum Tsh!) However, the disappointment was true. Watching it again as an adult, I was hoping that I might find something in the film to make me appreciate it better than as a child. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case. It’s just as dull as I remember it being.

In the 1960’s, Dr David Banner is a military scientist experimenting to find a method for humans to gain an instant healing factor, so that it can be used to create invincible super soldiers. The problem with his experiments are that David is a bit unhinged, and the test animals keep dying, which is why his boss General Ross angrily forbids that David use human experiments. David inevitably ignores him, and uses himself as a test subject, For Science! The result is that he passes his infected blood onto his son Bruce, who suffers a terrible skin condition. General Ross is unimpressed when he finds out that David didn’t listen to him and shuts him down. David’s disproportionate response is to detonate a nuclear bomb to destroy the military base, then try to stab baby Bruce to death, accidentally killing his wife instead.

Following the incident, Bruce is put up for adoption, and in the present day, Dr Bruce Krenzler is working as a scientist himself. Things aren’t going well for him right now, as his co-worker Dr Betty Ross is his ex-girlfriend, his work (which is a smaller scale version of his father’s) is going nowhere, and he’s facing a buyout from Douchey McDoucherson. (That isn’t the character’s actual name by the way, he just gets the “honour” of being the first character to be referred to with a demeaning nickname.) When a workplace accident gets a colleague stuck in a machine set to generate gamma radiation, Bruce saves the colleague, but is trapped in the room himself and bathed in radiation. Because of his tainted blood, he survives and the skin condition is cured as a bonus, until the creepy new janitor arrives and reveals himself to be David Banner, recently released from prison and also Bruce’s biological father. Having been told that his birth parents were dead, Bruce is rather upset at the creepy hobo’s claims, particularly when he starts going on about Bruce carrying on his father’s legacy. David explains that his formula created new tissue when a subject was injured, but because Bruce was born with it, it also affects him when he’s emotionally damaged. Unfortunately for Bruce, he’s a complete headcase with daddy issues and repressed memories to spare, so he turns into the not-so-jolly green giant and smashes the lab.

The next day, General Ross places Bruce under house arrest because his wallet was found at the lab. Douchey McDoucherson comes to keep him company and torments Bruce with the knowledge that David plans to attack Betty in order to get revenge against her father and Bruce. Hulk smashes Douchey (serves him right, the smug prick) and heads for Betty’s house, where she is being attacked by David’s dogs, which had been injected with the infected blood and turned into Hulk Dogs.

Hulk smashes the dogs and saves Betty. She repays him by drugging him and handing him over to her father. What an ungrateful bitch! Meanwhile, David finds out that the Hulk Dogs failed, so he turns himself into Absorbing Man to gain new powers from whatever he comes into contact with.

Betty protests when her dad reveals that he plans on keeping Bruce locked in a sensory deprivation tank for the rest of his life. What did she think he was going to do? He doesn’t stay in the tank for long, because Douchey McDoucherson switches it off so that he can zap Bruce with a cattle prod, an act of stupidity that ranks pretty highly on the list of stupid things that should not be done. Douchey then tries to shoot Hulk with a missile, blowing himself up when the missile bounces harmlessly off him and rebounds towards Douchey, blowing him up in a terrible death scene.

Hulk then runs off into the desert for an extended sequence of General Ross throwing military vehicles at Hulk and Hulk smashing then. General Ross wins when Hulk jumps onto a fighter jet, and the jet flies into space to make Hulk lose consciousness from lack of oxygen. David is allowed to meet Bruce again, having been gone for the last hour of the film. David reveals that his new absorbing powers have made his body unstable, and he plans to stabilise himself by killing Bruce and absorbing his powers. Bruce is naturally not pleased with this turn of events and turns into Hulk again. In response, David takes a bite out of a nearby power cable and turns into a giant electricity monster. The two battle, with David later assuming wind, rock and water forms before he successfully absorbs Bruce’s powers. However, there’s too much power for David to handle, and he mutates into a giant green bubble thing. General Ross finally decides he’s had enough of the Banners’ shit and nukes them both. Being a giant green bubble thing and therefore unable to escape, David is killed, but Bruce survives and later goes into hiding in South America.

The big problem with Hulk is that it’s dull. Dull, dull, dull. The characters all have severe emotional trauma, except for Douchey McDoucherson, who gets to be a douche instead. While there is potential for some interesting character relationships, that potential is unfortunately not realised because everyone is so glum all the time, it’s hard to care for any of the characters. It feels depressing to watch. Unfortunately, the action scenes don’t buoy things either. Hulk appears for the first time 50 minutes in, but the film doesn’t really build up towards it. In Alien, the tension is built up gradually with fake scares and false alarms until the audience is terrified when the Xenomorph finally appears. Hulk doesn’t compare to that, with the opening almost-an-hour instead spent on Bruce Banner’s day-to-day life, the emotional issues of the cast, and abstract dream sequences. When the final act arrives and is almost entirely action scenes, it doesn’t satisfy or feel like a reward for sitting through the rest, and the dream sequences now get to invade the action scenes while they’re underway, instead of waiting until they’re done. Perhaps it would have been better to mix things up, instead of having the first two acts be almost entirely drama and angst, and the third act almost entirely action.

The special effects are unfortunately rather weak. The Hulk Dogs look silly, and the Hulk isn’t very intimidating in his appearance, looking like a constipated, musclebound Shrek. He is a pale shade of green, which makes him look rather sickly, though this could be deliberate as a way of showing the Hulk as an unhealthy, unnatural being. David’s absorbing form at the end is better than the rest, though how much better depends on what form he’s currently in. In the comics, the character of Absorbing Man is not Bruce Banner's father, and his powers are magical in origin.

At times, the film shows a particular scene from several angles, laid out as if it was on a comic book page. This is a nice idea and it is visually striking, but it doesn’t really work in this film, because it clashes with the film’s sombre, grimdark tone. I would like to see another film do it because it’s not a bad idea. It could work well in a more stylish film like Blade, or a more self-aware, parodic film (Someone make a Deadpool film already!) However, there are times where the resulting scene looks silly, for example Douchey McDoucherson’s death scene and an early scene of Bruce looking at a photo of himself and Betty, which suddenly starts moving as if it were a magic photo from Harry Potter. Amusingly, this comes immediately after Bruce says that the lab is struggling, having not succeeded in their experiments. Patent that moving photo technology Bruce, you could make millions off it!

At times, it almost feels like Hulk is ashamed to be based on a comic about a big green rage monster, and that the license is holding it back from being its own thing with its own grand ideas, even though the X Men films proved that being adapted from a comic needn’t be seen as an obstacle preventing you from having something interesting to say. (The film’s director Ang Lee approached the film as a Greek tragedy, while star Eric Bana commented that the shoot was “Ridiculously serious... a silent set, morbid in a lot of ways.”) The comic panel layout and action sequences feel like lipservice the film put in to appease nerds who write online about how they got some part from the origin story wrong and that they didn’t stick slavishly to the source material, not because the film actually wants those elements there. Nevertheless, there is one nice thing I can say about Hulk. It isn’t content with going through the motions, instead trying to do something different in the context of a superhero film. Until next time.

Next Time: Did I talk smack about your favourite film, or praise a dud? The next film is set to punish me for it.

Stan Lee Spotter: Stan Lee can be seen as a security guard at the lab where Bruce Banner works. His colleague is Lou Ferrigno, who played Hulk in the 1970s TV series.

X Men 2 (2003)

X Men 2 (2003)

 

Release Date: May 2, 2003

After the success of the previous X Men film, much was expected of the sequel. Fortunately, X Men 2 meets those expectations.

The film hits the ground running with an excellent opening scene in which the US president is attacked by a teleporting mutant. The mutant’s movements and attacks look like something from a martial arts film, in the best possible way, as the mutant runs rings around the bodyguards shooting at him. This is what the fight scenes in Daredevil should have been, teleporting aside. This incident gives mutant hating military scientist Colonel William Stryker an excuse to attack mutants more openly. He interrogates Magneto in his plastic prison and learns of the X Mansion and Cerebro.

Professor Xavier is concerned about the potential for the White House incident to turn people against mutants, even moreso than usual, so he sends Jean Grey and Storm to find the attacker. He is found in a church in Boston, and Storm gets him to co-operate with some thunderbolt shaped encouragement. “Do you know what happens to a teleporting blue mutant with a German accent when it’s struck by lightning? The same thing that happens to everything else!” The mutant gives his name as Kurt Wagner, or Nightcrawler, and states that he doesn’t remember anything about the attack. A mysterious burn mark is found on the back of his neck.

After a trip to Alkali Lake to learn about his past ends up being a bust, Wolverine returns to the X Mansion and is left with the task of babysitting the students while Xavier and Cyclops visit Magneto in prison. Xavier learns from Magneto that Stryker knows about Cerebro and is planning an attack. Unfortunately, Xavier and Cyclops can’t do anything about it, because in the words of Admiral Ackbar, it’s a trap! Magneto’s cell is filled with gas, incapacitating Magneto and Xavier, and Cyclops is defeated by Stryker’s secretary, Lady Deathstrike. Cyclops better hope that Wolverine never finds out that Cyclops was beaten by a girl. Later, Mystique finds out where Magneto is being held, and injects a guard with iron while he is off duty, allowing Magneto to use it in order to escape his prison.

With most of the X Men away, Stryker attacks the X Mansion. He is able to capture a few of the students before his soldiers are discovered and Wolverine starts killing them all. The remaining students escape with Colossus as their leader, but Wolverine, Rogue, her boyfriend Bobby, who now calls himself Iceman, and his friend John are separated from the rest of the group and must make their own way. Stryker insists that he and Wolverine have a history together...

Which is not the one in which Stryker is played by Danny Huston, oh no. That never happened. There was this mercenary guy who had swords though. What was his name again? Was it Deathstroke or something? Anyway, Wolverine’s group head for Boston to meet up with Jean and Storm, making a stop at Iceman’s house for a change of clothing.

Iceman comes out to his parents and brother as a mutant, which upsets his brother and makes him run upstairs to his room. Instead of writing cringeworthy poetry about how life isn’t fair and nobody understands him, while listening to the most goth song in the world, he phones the police, thus getting himself permanently taken off Iceman’s Christmas card list. John is angry with Iceman’s family for their prejudice against mutants and when the police show up, he starts burning them all while calling himself Pyro. Rogue puts a stop to Pyro’s rampage by grabbing his ankle. Jean, Storm and Nightcrawler arrive in the X Jet to pick up the others, prompting attack jets to fire missiles at them. Jean’s powers are growing, but she is losing control over them, which prevents her from stopping the missiles from hitting the jet, but fortunately, Magneto saves the day.

Magneto proposes a truce, since Mystique has discovered that Stryker raided the X Mansion in order to examine Cerebro and build his own version under Alkali Lake to find all mutants and kill them. He abducted Xavier to make him operate it, but naturally Xavier wouldn’t go along with that. Stryker introduces his son Jason to Xavier. Jason is a mutant capable of creating powerful illusions, but Stryker had him lobotomised after the illusions drove Stryker’s wife to kill herself. Jason responds poorly to losing a staring contest with Xavier decides to play Let’s Mind Rape Professor Xavier to Make Him Operate Cerebro instead.

Nightcrawler is caught eavesdropping ona private conversation with Magneto, but Jean remembers that he was being brainwashed by Stryker, so she reads his mind, and learns that Stryker is operating from beneath Alkali Lake. The X Men and Brotherhood head there to save Xavier, Cyclops and the kids and defeat Stryker. Jean finds Cyclops, who had been brainwashed by Stryker, and quickly brings him back to his senses, but their battle damages the dam, causing it to start leaking. Wolverine finds Stryker, who tells him that he was responsible for giving Wolverine his adamantium skeleton, and that he did the same to Lady Deathstrike, as well as brainwashing her to be his loyal henchwoman with a chemical on the back on her neck. The chemical was also used on Nightcrawler, Magneto and Cyclops. She and Wolverine fight, but Wolverine wins by injecting her with liquid adamantium. Stryker escapes during the battle, but Wolverine catches up and ties him up in metal chains. Cerebro is activated and causes extreme pain to all mutants, but Magneto thought ahead and wore his helmet to block out the noise, allowing him to move some panels to make the machine affect regular people instead. (Let’s not think about the people who died because they were driving, performing surgery, or operating heavy machinery when Cerebro was turned on.) Thanks to all the commotion, the dam starts to fall apart as Storm and Nightcrawler rescue the children and save Xavier from Jason’s illusion, leaving Jason to die as the roof caves in.

The group escapes Alkali Lake as the dam bursts. Stryker manages to escape the chains, just as Magneto finds him and binds the chains again, tying him up again with no way to avoid drowning. Magneto and Mystique escape, and Pyro decides to join the Brotherhood instead. Jean sacrifices herself to hold back the rushing water as the X Jet takes off.

In the comics and the first film, there was a subtext to the mutant condition as a stand in for real life racism and hate. That returns here, though there is also a comparison to be made with homosexuality issues and pride. This is particularly prominent in the scene where Iceman admits to his parents that he is a mutant, which was designed in such a way as to echo conversations about coming out of the closet, complete with Iceman’s mother asking “Have you tried not being a mutant?” Ian McKellen helped write this scene, using his experience of coming out as gay as an influence. In addition, Mystique is shown as being proud that she is a mutant. At one point, Nightcrawler asks her why she chooses to not look like everyone else, even though she can shapeshift. She responds that she shouldn’t have to hide the fact that she is a mutant.

Among the new characters, the highlights are Nightcrawler and Stryker. As I have already discussed earlier, Nightcrawler makes the most of his opening scene in the White House, and he is just as good in the more quiet scenes. His strong religious beliefs juxtaposed with his demonic appearance combine to make him one of the most tolerant and likeable characters for his peaceful ways. He also ties in nicely to the theme of co-operation between humans and mutants. On the other hand, Stryker is an opposite to Nightcrawler. He fills a similar role to Senator Kelly in the first film, a mutant phobic government official. He is a nasty piece of work, going as far as to lobotomise his own son for his cause, and he doesn’t learn his lesson. Despite his racism, he isn’t stupid, engineering events in order to sway the public in his favour, removing Xavier before launching his raid on the X Mansion, and taking the presence of Mystique into account during the events at Alkali Lake. He is played by Brian Cox, who is quite effective in the role, frightening yet charismatic. In the comics, Stryker was a televangelist who preached genocide of mutants. He also had a military background, which was expanded for the film. By contrast, Lady Deathstrike is less successful. In the comics, she hates Wolverine because she thinks that he stole her father’s research, and the two have a history together, which could have been explored. Unfortunately, she spends the entire film under Stryker’s control and following his orders, so her personality isn’t seen. It’s comparable to how Scorpion and Sub-Zero were portrayed in the Mortal Kombat film, though not as egregious as that example. The two are notorious for having one of the most heated rivalries in video games, but in the film, they were brainwashed henchmen of the antagonist, with their animosity mentioned once in passing.

X Men 2 manages to improve on the first film by exploring issues of tolerance and peace in greater depth, as well as improving on the already good action scenes from the first film.

Next Time: In which 10 year old me’s hopes and dreams are cruelly destroyed, crushed underfoot. Smashed, if you will.

Bonus: Nightcrawler’s absence from the third film was explained in the tie in video game for the third X Men film. At the end of the game, Nightcrawler decided to leave the X Men because he disliked their violent lifestyle. Then again, he could have just been annoyed at past villains refusing to stay dead, since the game’s main antagonist was Jason Stryker, who had somehow survived the events of this film and was understandably miffed at Nightcrawler for not saving him. Sabretooth and Lady Deathstrike were also revived without explanation to serve as bosses.