The Punisher/The Punisher: War Zone [DVD]

Great movie👍

The two films you get are not Joined together warzone is another shot at marvels darkest creation.the punisher is ok with tom jane doing an admiral shot at the punisher but the film left an overall underwhelming feel to it that and his back story of being CIA left a bad taste in the mouth.Warzone is the stand out of the twin pack fast paced and taking heavly from Garth Ennis's punisher max titles it starts straight into the action, restores his original back story as a marine and is unrelenting in its vision of a man fighting the battles that cops wont. as my mate Ste said 15 minutes into the film "well thats already better than the last Punisher film".

This two disc box set includes the 2004 movie 'Punisher' starring Tom Jane as the title character, and the later 2008 release 'Punisher Warzone', starring Ray Stevenson, both re-released in high definition blu-ray with remastered sound and picture.In 'The Punisher' (2004), when FBI agent Frank Castle is involved in a smuggling sting that sees the son of notorious crime boss Howard Saint killed in the crossfire, Saint orders the entire extended Castle family murdered in cold blood - but Frank Castle survives and, with the FBI unable to prosecute the killers of his family, begins a mission to take the Saint family down...In 'Punisher: Warzone' (2008), the Punisher is established as having active in New York City as a vigilante for a number of years.Castle infiltrates the criminal operation of crime boss Billy 'the beaut' Russotti (known so because of his dashing good looks and personal vanity), throwing Russotti into a glass crusher, horribly disfiguring him, and resulting in him renaming himself as 'Jigsaw' because of the patch work appearance of his reconstructed face.Castle also accidentally killed undercover FBI agent Nicky Donatelli, resulting in the 'Punisher task force' (in fact not a task force at all, just the hapless reject Detective Martin Soap, and Donatelli's vengeance seeking partner Paul Budianski left to their own devices by a police force who worships the Punisher as someone who does what they cant do) being put on his trail.Its fair to say that both movies - produced on a relative shoe string when compared to the huge budgets of more recent movies of the superhero genre - were much maligned at the time of their release, both critically and commercially, but look a little harder and theres a lot to be admired and enjoyed about both movies.The 2004 movie in particular - the limits of a low budget and a poor villain aside - has strong elements of both classic Western movies about it, as well as the old-school noir action movies of the 60's and 70's, as well as a smattering of humour. The movie also utilizes a number of scenes lifted almost directly off the pages of the comic books - in particular Garth Ennis 'Welcome Back Frank', but also Dan Abnetts 'Punisher: Year One', and Chuck Dixons 'Punisher: Warzone'.Tom Jane, whilst perhaps not visually as character accurate as his successor Stevenson would be, also nails the character of Frank Castle and does a great job of conveying just how damaged the character is, and the assassin 'The Russian' and Franks trio of disfunctional house mates are also likewise excellently cast.Warzones main influences meanwhile are the excellent stories of the Garth Ennis 'Punisher MAX' series - any one of which would have made a terrific movie in and of themselves - director Lexi Alexander instead made the movie an awkward mash-up of several of these stories, but in the process of doing doing so managed to do justice to none of them, and artistically butchering (as well as literally butchering) a number of the characters.What the film lacks in terms of story or highbrow themes and characterisation however, it more than makes up with wall-to-wall action, gratuity, violence and gore, and proves itself - if not a particularily great homage to the Punisher - to be exactly the kind of 'Good-bad' movie thats hugely entertaining in the early hours of the morning after a few beers, and whilst the 2004 movie is a favourate of mine, the 2008 movie is one that has grown and grown on me the more I watch it.In terms of special features, 'The Punisher' comes complete with deleted scenes, and excellent and illuminating directors commentary, an alternate opening set in the Gulf War illustrated by famous Punisher cover artist Tim Bradstreet, behind the scenes featurettes, and music videos.'Warzone' includes numerous featurettes, including a 'making of', 'training the Punisher', 'Weapons of the Punisher', and 'Making of Jigsaw' featurettes, as well as directiors audio commentary.In terms of criticisms - not withstanding any criticisms of the movies themselves - my main issue with this edition is that it does not include the extended cut of the 2004 movie or all of the deleted scenes that it included, which amalgamated both the animated alternate opening and the full 17 minutes of extra footage into one coherent story in a way that made it a much better film overall, and not only established Castles military background, but also reveals important details about how the villain Howard Saint is so easily able to come into possession of the information that revealed the identity of Castle and allowed him to murder his family. The 2004 movie also lacks Tom Janes brilliant self funded homage to the character 'Dirty Laundry' - viewable online. It also would have been nice if the original Punisher movie starring Dolph Lundgren collected onto this box set to make it truely definitive.Overall however its great to see both of these - for different reasons - underrated movies (in my opinion) collected into one box set.

The first film (the original) is well deserving of the 5 stars. The second, although still enjoyable, is not in the same class and is best deserving of 4 stars. Again, I wish Amazon could give half stars as a 4.5 star rating would be fairer.

Good value

A good double movie punisher the first movie with john t as the bad killing the family of frank castle then to be come punisher and sets out for revenge. The 2nd movie with the actor who plays rays brother in the movie as the punisher crimes unit detective and Dominic west the affair. as jigsaw .

The first disc is OK, a little bit slow and sometimes boring, but a decent action movie. The 2nd one...oh my gosh... Dark, bloody and the action scenes... If you would like to see a good film with ++18 scenes, this will be a perfect choice! God Damn It Castle!

a tale of two films. i think the first film is good the second, not so much.

Thank u great movie

Works with no problems.

Ce coffret rassemblant les deux épisodes du punisher sorti en 2004 et 2008 sont différents l'un à l'autre et le second n'est pas la suite directe.Personnellement, j'ai acheté ce coffret pour le premier qui est pour moi un bon film même si il n'est pas du tout en rapport avec le comic d'origine. la qualité blu ray est bonne mais pax exceptionnelle.Les acteurs sont bons, même si travolta surjoue dans son rôle de méchant de service et on passe à un très bon moment. Le deuxième est une curiosité à mes yeux car, je n'avais vu que les critiques et malheuresement c'est une quasi catastrophe car même si l'acteur ray stevenson à l'aspect du personnage du comic, il n'a pas franchement le talent de nous transporter dans son aventure.Et que dire des méchants, une réelle blague, ils font peur surtout par leur grimaces et le personnage de jigsaw est une pâle copie du tueur psychopathe du dernier batman (le joker).Même si l'ambiance sombre est d'origine dans le comic,du sang, du sang et encore du sangdans les scènes de combat un peu trop gros à mon goût par moment.On voit bien que les producteurs ont voulu surfer sur la vague des 2 derniers batman notamment dans les scènes finales où on retrouve les mêmes jeux de lumières.La qualité du blu ray est très bonne niveau image, petit bémol au niveau du son pas terrible.Au final, un bon coffret pas cher a acheté principalement pour le premier épisode

My son didn't know it was region locked

Liked the original Punisher, not to fond of the second one.