Metacritic reviews

Among the recent spate of comic-book movies, from "Spider-Man" to the "X-Men," The Punisher is unique.

Unlike some of its recent ilk – "Spider-Man," for example – The Punisher is, no disrespect, a thoroughly morose and bilious affair. That is precisely what I like best about it.

For such a formulaic vigilante film, The Punisher has a far better cast than it deserves.

The most entertaining scenes focus on the lovable louts and losers who share the boardinghouse where the protagonist - based on a comic-book character billed as a superhero without superpowers - prepares his grisly exploits. The rest is mayhem.

The Punisher isn't Frank Castle; it's Jonathan Hensleigh. And the punishee is anyone sitting in the audience.

Sadly, The Punisher is about little more than bullets hitting bone, and how good it might feel to be on the right end of a gun.

As bad as the movie is, when it tries to be funny -- a hired killer who sings to his victims, a fat man named Bumpo, and an interminable fight scene choreographed to “La donna è mobile” -- it somehow manages to get several degrees worse.

The Punisher would be almost offensive were it not so inconsequential. There's just something terribly off-putting about a movie in which every gruesome death is a punch line, where a villain's homosexuality is used to lure him to his death and dozens of innocents are gunned down just to launch a film franchise.

A sickeningly manipulative, by-the-numbers revenge movie.

The Punisher is a moronically inept and tedious piece of death-wish trash.