Wednesday’s film was The Punisher. It’s tempting to say Straight To Video and leave it at that. Certainly, if it hadn’t been hitching a ride on the comic adaptation bandwagon it would have sunk without a trace. Still, it was vastly superior to Catwoman (the new standard of low since it snuck in under Van Halen Helsing at the bottom of the pile).

Some of the characters have been taken from Garth Ennis’ recent run on the character (Volumes 1, 2, 3 available from Amazon), as well as at least two key scenes, though Joan has gone from spindly wall-flower to sex-bomb waitress who always picks the wrong men and The Russian is mute. Ennis’ humour is left well alone, it works in panels but would be far too gory for the screen.

The death of Castle’s wife and child is a straight lift from Mad Max and Punny then goes and builds a car that would fit perfectly into Max’s world. And there’s a very, very bizarre Mariachi moment.

If you have a Region 1 DVD player, get the 1990 Dolph Lundgren movie and compare it to this year’s. If that’s not interactive enough for ya, play the game (PS2).