I’ve already paid the sunk cost of sitting through the previous two attempts to bring Frank Castle to the big screen. To recap:

• Dolph Lundgren, 1989. The lack of dialogue and acting can be forgiven (come on, this is Dolph, and this is The Punisher). The lack of the skull T-shirt can not.
• Thomas Jane, 2004. Too much dialogue and “acting”. The movie also pretty much just rips off the character name and does not follow much of the story, leaving this as a standard “man pursuing revenge” movie.

Ray Stevenson does a much better job with the character. The script is truer to the comics. The movie is distilled to an episode of the story of The Punisher; what little backstory references are made actually intrude on the movie rather than enhance it. This will alienate people unfamiliar with The Punisher, but helps those that already are.

My only complaint is that the movie’s violence is simply gratuitous, rather than serving as a vehicle for “action”.