I finally finished Marvel's The Punisher last week, and am going to move through the rest of Marvel's Netflix catalogue, next. I've already watched both seasons of Daredevil, and the first season of Jessica Jones, and really enjoyed the first part of Daredevil second season, which features Jon Bernthal's depiction of Frank Castle, the Punisher, so I was really looking forward to a full season of Punisher.
All in all, The Punisher was pretty good. While not a totally faithful of the comics version of the character (in the comics, Punisher is even more enthralled by violence and destruction than in the show), this is an interesting and more humanizing take on the character, which I appreciate as a separate exploration. The Punisher is a character who has his family killed, and then goes on a war of vengeance against all evildoers, ironically using essentially any method possible to punish them.
This is what makes the existence of Punisher great in Daredevil, in that Punisher provides a fascinating foil to Daredevil. Daredevil is so committed to law and justice that he has been known to apprehend suspects and then defend them in court by day as his attorney alter ego. Punisher, on the other hand, believes in results more than process, which gives him his anti-hero status.
While this element of the character plays superbly in Daredevil, in his own show Punisher's moral ties are often more muddled and confusing than simple in a clarifying way. They attempt to provide a foil to Punisher in a character who looks up to Punisher and wishes to emulate him, and when pressed about what makes them different, Frank feebly and almost ashamedly is forced to concede that the only difference is the targets they choose, and even more feebly, the fact that he chooses not to use bombs because they are cowardly, despite throwing about 20 grenades throughout the process of the show.
The acting performances are generally good, with Bernthal doing a really nice job with his more humanized version of Punisher. Excellent turns are also brought in by Ebon Moss-Bachrach, who has excellent chemistry with Bernthal, by Deborah Ann Woll, reprising her Daredevil role as Karen Page, and Jason R. Moore, who plays a former military buddy of Frank's. As far as villains, I didn't really buy one of them (I won't spoil it here, as it's a bit of a twist), but Paul Shultze does turn in a good performance as Agent Orange that's not quite as compelling a villain as Vicent D'Onofrio's portrayal of Kingpin in Daredevil, but good enough to get the job done.
The show features excellent action and a good soundtrack, and is generally shot and directed pretty well. There's plenty of the over the top violence you'd expect from a show about Punisher, so I'd say on that front I was pretty satisfied.
All in all, I felt a little disappointed by The Punisher, but that may just be because I had pretty high expectations for the show. It succeeded quite a bit, but wasn't as great as I think it could have been, and indeed was during his run on Daredevil. I'd give it an 8.0/10.
-TRO
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