Revenge is the theme of the week, first Kill Bill 2 and now the Punisher. The Punisher is a spin off character from Spiderman. He’s an ex-FBI , ex Special Forces operative who is out to avenge the murder of his entire family.

It’s very important to keep in mind his origins and history as a comic book character because the direction and story pay homage to the series. It also means that the scope and tone of the film are more comic book like than Hollywood. More grit than gloss. If you’re hoping for a cool action flick, look elsewhere.

Three props

1) Thomas Jane is a good Punisher. He looks and acts the part.

2) The character is close to the series to it’s credit.

3) Despite his behavior at the end of the day the Punisher is pretty likable and humorous.

Three flops

1) Parts of the premise are ridiculous. The FBI and the mob are looking for him, but no one sees him lurking about exacting his revenge until it’s too late to stop him. Uh huh. This needed to be addressed.

2) John Travolta = Dr. Evil. Whether it’s a tribute or a rip off, it’s blatant, obvious and irksome.

3) Take away Thomas Jane and John Travolta and it’s one nasty sea of fugly actors. And I do mean fugly.

It’s definitely worth a matinée, DVD or video rental.

Remember his credo – “This is not revenge. This is punishment.”

This is the second and last installment in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill epic. The basic premise is that Beatrix Kiddo is out to avenge the death of her fiancee and the attempt on her life during a dress rehearsal for her wedding four years earlier. In Kill Bill 1 Beatrix settled the score with 1/2 of the hit squad. Now she’s going back to finish the job and kill Bill, the mastermind of the murder operation.

Here’s what works really well about this film.

1) The music – not only is the soundtrack excellent on it’s own right, the score works perfectly with every scene.

2) The character development – Quentin Tarantino has come a long way in this regard. 10 years ago his character development hinged on long rambling tracts of dialogue. What differentiated one character from another in his earlier work was what they said – or their particular approach to an argument. But this time out he developed a number of very memorable and discrete characters. It’s more subtle but welcome.

3) Acting – the acting here is top shelf. He’s never gotten better performances out of his actors.

4) Cinematography – again he’s progressed tremendously. The camera moves where and when it needs to.

5) Fight sequences – the martial arts work is great.

6) Basic premise – he makes the revenge motive work here and develops it credibly.

Here’s two areas that missed the mark

1) The final confrontation is almost anti-climatic and at points unbelievable. This detracted from the ending.

2) Before the final confrontation there’s a very distinct moment where the entire movie jumps the shark. It’s a big painful lurch when the action should be building up to a strong finish. Unfortunately the film never recovers from that moment.