He was a much darker character than the other superhero types of comic books. Sounds like a simple excuse to explain away garbage.Īs a kid, I had a brief phase as a comic collector, and The Punisher was one of my favorite reads. It's silly, but we wanted it to be silly. I'm getting sick and tired of this self-referential crap anyway. While the filmmakers may explain this away as intentional, a wink at the camera, if you will, it doesn't work in any sense. Travolta constantly spouts the kind of cheeseball lines reminiscent of Eighties action films. Anyone could have played this part and probably made for a more menacing threat. Travolta is such a one-dimensional bad guy that it really doesn't make sense why the decision was made to cast such a high-profile actor as the villain anyway. John Travolta is cartoonishly awful as Howard Saint. His soul purpose in life now is to avenge his family's death and bring the same misery he has felt to Howard Saint and his family. Thought to be dead as well, Castle now rebuilds himself and becomes a lone crime vigilante known as The Punisher.

Castle is the lone survivor of the tragedy. A short time later Castle and his entire family come under attack at a family reunion. A drug bust goes awry and Saint's son winds up dead. On his last assignment, Castle makes enemies with the wrong man, Howard Saint (John Travolta). Frank Castle is a celebrated former soldier who has recently retired from undercover police work to spend some quality time with his wife and son.

The punisher 2004