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Netflix's Marvel's The Punisher

Started by Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth, November 18, 2017, 10:08:18 PM

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Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

I'm just over halfway through. Surprisingly dull so far.

wooders1978


Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Bernthal is still good, but I think Frank is suffering from Jack Sparrow syndrome. He worked well in Daredevil as a supporting character, but the qualities that made him work there don't really translate to being the lead. Then again, the character has been in publication for forty-odd years, so maybe that's not the problem after all.

Lord Mandrake

I just can't understand how many people killed Frank's family and how many times it happened.

Butchers Blind

Up to halfway through and, yeah, it's pretty dull so far.  Was hoping we were done with the 'people who killed Frank's family' stuff and this series would focus on different storylines.  They've even included the woman who keeps crying from Daredevil in this.   

bgmnts

I am surprised that nobody is bored of Marvel yet. Such a saturation in the market.

I love The Punisher character but totally agreed its quite dull.

Shaky

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on November 18, 2017, 10:39:32 PM
Bernthal is still good, but I think Frank is suffering from Jack Sparrow syndrome. He worked well in Daredevil as a supporting character, but the qualities that made him work there don't really translate to being the lead. Then again, the character has been in publication for forty-odd years, so maybe that's not the problem after all.

Planning to watch this tonight so a bit disappointed to hear from various quarters that it doesn't quite work. I guess it's not surprising in a way, as Frank's such a black and white character that I'm not sure there's mileage to be had from making him soulful and brooding for 13 episodes.  He's also only as good as his adversaries so why on earth are they still trying to mine his past when most fans probably just want to see him fuck up loads of baddies? His family died and that event unlocked the dormant killer in him. That's pretty much it. Garth Ennis realised this and that's why his Punisher run showcases, for many, the definitive version of the character.

Should probably actually watch the fucker, mind.

Lord Mandrake

Quote from: Shaky on November 19, 2017, 08:51:45 AM
His family died and that event unlocked the dormant killer in him. That's pretty much it.

Seems he was hardly a wallflower before half the government and underworld killed his family. Flashbacks to his days taking out scores of Taliban with sometimes just his bare hands and then quite violently berating his young son for saying 'Hadjis'. He's just a nutter.


Shaky

Quote from: Lord Mandrake on November 19, 2017, 09:52:28 AM
Seems he was hardly a wallflower before half the government and underworld killed his family. Flashbacks to his days taking out scores of Taliban with sometimes just his bare hands and then quite violently berating his young son for saying 'Hadjis'. He's just a nutter.

I meant Frank in the comics as I haven't seen the series yet, but yeah my comment was off the mark. Let me amend it - he was bloodthirsty during the Vietnam War, tried to do the family thing afterwards then has it all blown apart giving him an excuse to let his true nature out once again.

Not one of these netflix marvel series have justified 10+ hour long episode seasons, Daredevil came closest

BlodwynPig

what's his special power? can he punch really hard? lycra or leather?

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

It picked up a bit in the last few episodes, which is the opposite of how these Netflix Marvel shows usually go. Overall though, in its own way, it feels as much of a wasted opportunity as The Defenders.

monolith

Just finished it. Some great scenes and overall I had a good time watching it. Bernthal is brilliant as Frank.

However it's littered with problems. Including probably the most obvious and boring baddie in all of these Marvel things.

Definitely enjoyed it but don't think I could wholeheartedly recommend it.

Bazooka

I too haven't watched it yet, I still think Daredevil 1 was great because of Fisk, and Daredevil 2 because of The Punisher. I will give it a go, to think they are now filming Iron Fist series w, Defenders was atrocious.

AsparagusTrevor

I'm halfway through and while I'm basically enjoying when I think about it little has happened in the six episodes. It's also surprisingly mild for an 18-rated Punisher story, whereas Frank's appearances in Daredevil were anything but.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Yeah. In Daredevil he was like a force of nature. He had limited screen time there and was mostly viewed from other characters' point of view, though. That's what I was getting at above when I said he doesn't work so well in the lead.

Dr Rock

I never read Garth Ennis's run but I never liked Punisher as a protagonist in his own stories. He should be contrasted with/fighting Daredevil or Spider-Man. Shooting bad guys, that's just Charles Bronson stuff, and he's quite a dull character really. I might give this a miss.

kngen

Can I watch this as a standalone thingy, or I do have to struggle through all the other dreary Marvel Netflix series for it to make sense? (I got to the end of DD series 2, and then kind of got stuck on Jessica Jones series 1, even though I didn't actively hate it, and I could gawp at her all day, tbh - but then they just started firing more and more different series at me and I couldn't be arsed.)

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

The second series of Daredevil is the only one that's relevant to this.

kngen


Lord Mandrake

Just finished,  it is so disconnected from the other Marvel series. There's only one minor character that I spotted that's crossed over and thankfully it's not the nurse again. Episode 8 is my favourite out of any of these shows and from there onwards it really ratchets up, overall it is magnitudes deeper and grittier than any other Marvel property. The brutality of the last couple of episodes was really quite shocking to me, crikey does some claret flow. Best moment was Frank admitting that although he was never into hip hop "The Wu Tang is next level shit".

AsparagusTrevor

I'm 9 episodes in now, although it's picked up and is definitely getting more interesting I'm still eager for a nice bloody action scene.

Mister Six

Quote from: Dr Rock on November 19, 2017, 11:53:21 PM
I never read Garth Ennis's run but I never liked Punisher as a protagonist in his own stories. He should be contrasted with/fighting Daredevil or Spider-Man. Shooting bad guys, that's just Charles Bronson stuff, and he's quite a dull character really. I might give this a miss.

The MAX series, which this seems to draw from, tended to focus on other characters getting caught up in his wake, or (unwisely) going head-to-head with him. Basically it's like The Wire if Omar was The Terminator. That they've tried to do anything else is baffling. That he's getting basically a second parallel origin story is even moreso.

The Culture Bunker

Quote from: AsparagusTrevor on November 23, 2017, 08:01:54 AM
I'm 9 episodes in now, although it's picked up and is definitely getting more interesting I'm still eager for a nice bloody action scene.
Guess you got a few of them in the last few episodes...

I enjoyed this, with some reservations. They wasted the Rawlins character, making him some middle aged suit rather than how he was in the MAX comic book series. Also wasn't majorly taken with all the scenes with Micro's family and at times, I did wonder if someone somewhere had an idea for a government conspiracy story, that they shoehorned the Punisher into it.

If it gets a second series, I'd much rather see him going back to chasing gangsters. The mention of the Gnucci family in the first (or second?) episode wasn't, for shame, followed up on.

AsparagusTrevor

Quote from: The Culture Bunker on November 26, 2017, 11:16:00 AM
Quote from: AsparagusTrevor on November 23, 2017, 08:01:54 AM
I'm 9 episodes in now, although it's picked up and is definitely getting more interesting I'm still eager for a nice bloody action scene.
Guess you got a few of them in the last few episodes... .

Holy shit, yeah. The penultimate episode was especially brutal.

Butchers Blind

Last couple of episodes did pick up but on the whole it was a bit of a chore to get through.  Really didn't sustain the plot lasting the whole series so if they do go again maybe have the series split into two with different storylines for each.

The Culture Bunker

Quote from: Butchers Blind on November 27, 2017, 10:21:18 AM
Last couple of episodes did pick up but on the whole it was a bit of a chore to get through.  Really didn't sustain the plot lasting the whole series so if they do go again maybe have the series split into two with different storylines for each.
I didn't find it a chore as such, mainly because of the abilities of the guys playing Frank/Micro. However, I did think it suffered a tad from the same problem Jessica Jones had.

As in, I thought JJ would have been better served by showing us more of her working as a PI before bringing in Kilgrave for the final four or five episodes, keeping him as a hidden menace before that. Equally, in this series, after Frank sorts out those brickies, I would have liked to have seen him thinking "alright, fuck it, this is who I am" and going up against more gangster types before bringing in Micro and going through that storyline.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

The bizarre thing is that it was just rehashing his plotline from Daredevil. His war on crime was dashed off in a montage at the very beginning and then the show just hit reset. Also, in making his vendetta so totally against the Cerberus conspiracy, he's not got much motivation to punish ordinary criminals now.

It would perhaps have been too close to the plot of Punisher: War Zone, but I feel like it would have been better to have him going about his regular Punisher business, massacring gangsters and the like, only to inadvertently create a new arch enemy in the power vacuum.

Tombola

*Spoilers for final episode*

It certainly tied up all of the loose ends of his thirst for vengeance... again. Didn't really explore his inherent penchant for bloody violence but it was bloody satisfying seeing him drag Billy's face down a broken mirror and then kick the remains into a different mirror.

The trouble with all of these Marvel Netflix series, other than being at least 3 episodes too long, is that they want to do a serious, semi-realistic take on the source material, and maintain the iconic bits at the same time. It hasn't quite worked so far, but I'm sure Thanos will sort it all out.

Mister Six

Up to episode three and enjoying it. Don't mind the slow burn because it does seem to be going somewhere, and the supporting cast is fairly interesting (the female agent lady is a stock character in these things but I really fancy her, so...).

Really distracting how much Micro looks like Richard Thompson though.

EDIT: Also, I walk my dog in the park that the CIA fellas are chasing Micro through! Hurrah! I never get to do this in TV shows.