Ultimate Dolph

With sunken eyes and a detachment from his soul, Dolph Lundgren’s portrayal of Frank Castle in The Punisher was undervalued upon release. In time the film, and indeed Lundgren, have found plenty of reappraisal. For the opening third of The Batman particularly, Pattinson plays Wayne as a vapour. He’s a husk of a man drifting on the fumes of vengeful instinct. He loiters in the dark underbelly of a crime ridden world, targeting perpetrators. He stalks the city on his motorbike, riding through dark alleys, desolate roads and through tunnels. He has no life but this, to the point his demeanour becomes near vacant, almost devoid of a soul he once had. In The Batman where the arc skews from Lundgren’s Punisher, is that some hope and humility is found thanks to his encounters with Selena Kyle, Alfred, and to a lesser extent Gordon. Additionally the films resolution is about the futility of vengeance, whereas Dolph’s Punisher hasn’t escaped that thirst quite yet. Additionally, our villain roster perfectly balance between slimy mobsters (a great Jeroen Krabbe), and the more outlandish (in Punishers case, a female Yakuza boss, played with theatrical verve by Kim Miyori).