Okay, so I remember reading horrible reviews of this movie, so my expectations were set really low for this movie based on the Marvel comic. However, can I just say that I was mildly entertained? And I heart Thomas Jane (and not because of his wonderful choice of last name).
This is a pretty standard vengeance flick – man seeks vengeance against criminal who murders mans entire family (and by entire family I mean parents, wife, kids, cousins, etc. – all of them). The blurb at imDB claims the plot is: “After his wife and family are killed, G-Man Frank Castle (Jane) takes it upon himself to rid America of crime by acting as judge, jury and executioner.”
The cast was decent – John Travolta had fun chewing the scenery as the movie’s Big Bad, and Rebecca Romijm-Stamos was rather nice as one of Castle’s neighbors.
At some point while watching the movie CootieGirl woke up from her nap and wanted to come downstairs. She was still really sleepy, but laid on the sofa and began watching the movie. It was coming to the pinnacle of the movie and at one point Castle was having a major battle with some goon sent to kill him. CootieGirl sat up and pointed at the screen and said, “Boo boo!” She then crawled over to me and cuddled with me while watching with wide-eyes. I proceeded to tell her that fighting was BAD, and that it’s never the way to solve problems. Yadda yadda. When things started getting sketchy (picture a man wielding plyers in front of a heavily pierced man) I would fast forward. Then at another scene I covered CootieGirl’s eyes just before someone got killed and she scrambled to move my hands away.
It was at that point that I just turned the movie off and finished it later because I knew the entire last 30 minutes of the movie would be one big fightfest that I didn’t want her to see. So we turned on Doodlebops, which is another kind of torture altogether.
When I finally watched the end of the movie once CootieGirl was not around, it ended well and I have to admit I liked it. But then, I wasn’t expecting much.
2 1/2 cold popsicles out of five.