The “disgusting” film Roger Ebert called “one of the best-made bad movies” of all time
Few things are more frustrating for a viewer than watching a movie that’s impeccably composed on a visual level, but falls short on almost every other front. On one occasion, it left Roger Ebert completely befuddled, because the film’s artistic merits were in stark contrast to its stomach-churning content.
That’s one of the weird ways that cinema has evolved, though. Even shite movies can be a feast for the eyes, but no matter how gorgeous the cinematography, how impeccable the visual effects, or how awe-inspiring the sense of spectacle, some filmic turds are simply incapable of being polished.
Having spent most of his professional life subjecting himself to the good, the bad, and the ugly of the motion picture industry, it left Ebert trapped in a state of oxymoronic shock. Here was a gruesome, grisly, bone-snapping, and blood-spurting monstrosity that was by no means a good film, and yet, he felt obligated to point out that it was damned nice to look at on the big screen.
Not many people shared his opinion, seeing as barely anyone bothered to see it. Despite the onslaught of comic book adaptations to have smothered multiplexes since the turn of the millennium, Lexi Alexander’s Punisher: War Zone saw the titular Marvel character go zero-for-three at the box office and among critics after Dolph Lundgren and Thomas Jane had bungled their attempts, too.
It’s a remarkably violent picture, but it’s hard to tell if Alexander has her tongue in cheek or not. Ray Stevenson’s Frank Castle, and everybody else in the movie, takes everything so solemnly seriously that there’s almost no levity whatsoever, but the bonkers action sequences are so ludicrous that somebody has to be in on the joke. Either way, Ebert’s two-star review laid his cards squarely on the table.
“You used to be able to depend on a bad film being poorly made,” he wrote. “No longer. Punisher: War Zone is one of the best-made bad movies I’ve seen. It looks great, it hurtles through its paces and is well-acted. The soundtrack is like elevator music if the elevator were in a death plunge. The special effects are state-of-the-art. Its only flaw is that it’s disgusting.”
He wasn’t lying, and he even omitted a couple of notable moments. “Here you will see a man’s kidney being ripped out and eaten, a chair leg pushed through a head via the eyeball, heads sliced off, victims impaled and skewered, and the villain thrown into a machine that crushes glass bottles in much the same way concrete is mixed.”
That all happens, but Punisher: War Zone also features a guy getting blown to smithereens by a rocket launcher while parkouring in midair, a knife getting thrown directly into the middle of some poor fella’s face, another unlucky lad’s face getting blasted clean off by a shotgun, and one unfortunate chap literally gets his face smashed in by a single punch, so it’s hardly your typical Marvel movie.
Ebert was right in saying that it was a million miles away from being good, but he was also correct in saying that it was at least made with some semblance of filmmaking flair.
