Re-Watching The Punisher From 1989
Movie review time with Mick
Besides writing and sharing old memories online, watching movies is probably my favorite pastime. While I do watch some new movies, most of my movie watching time is spent watching older movies. I’ve been on a kick of watching ‘90s movies most recently, but I did sneak in one from the late-’80s a couple of weeks ago that I loved back in the day…The Punisher!
The Punisher is a movie that I first watched way back in 1989 at my cousin’s house while visiting on a road trip one summer. Later, I recorded it off HBO or some other pay TV channel and probably watched it another dozen times in the early ’90s. That was the last time I can remember watching it. I bought the DVD when it was first offered years ago, but never cracked it open until this viewing. After my friend Adam recently wrote an article about the original Marvel Cinematic Universe for The Retro Network and included this, I got the itch to watch it again, so here we are.
Keeping with the traditional origin story of the Marvel Comics character, Frank Castle’s family is killed in a mob car bombing. Most believed he had perished as well, but he didn’t. So he took to the sewers and spent the next five years “punishing” everyone in the mob.
The Yakuza lands in town and takes out the mob proper, and eventually kidnaps all of the boss’s kids to ensure their cooperation. Finally, The Punisher has to rescue the kids and team up with the boss responsible for his family’s death to help rescue his son in an all-out assault on the Yakuza headquarters.
This version of The Punisher works on a couple of levels. First, it works as a fine late-80s-era action movie. Even if it didn’t have The Punisher branding, the story would still make complete sense in and of itself. Secondly, the story told in this movie could absolutely be a 6-8 issue story arc in The Punisher comic. So, whether you are into superhero movies or not, this movie is going to work for you.
But don’t go into this looking for any deeper meaning or looking to critique the filmmaking or cinematography. This is a popcorn flick in the truest sense of the term, and you shouldn’t feel you’ve wasted your 90 minutes on it when you’re through watching.
Oh, and in fine Marvel style, Stan Lee has a cameo even though this one is from decades before the modern MCU, and I believe it’s my favorite of his cameos.
I’m not much on giving star ratings to movies, but on a scale of 1-5, I’d give this version of The Punisher a firm 2 1/2 stars. It’s a fun trip back in time to the ‘80s when action movies ruled the day, and those days are ones that I miss quite a bit now.
- Mick