“Punisher: War Zone” is the third and probably the best film about Marvel’s The Punisher character. It’s more exciting than the 1989 version and doesn’t try to be as deep and meaningful as the 2004 version; it focuses on the action and that’s why it works.

In “Punisher: War Zone”, Ray Stevenson (“Divergent”) stars as The Punisher, who for the last several years has been taking down hundreds of criminals. After one night of crime-fighting, The Punisher realises he accidentally killed an undercover agent and begins to question what he is doing but unfortunately, he can’t leave the game just yet as he must take down a new villain called ‘Jigsaw’ (Dominic West “Johnny English Reborn”).

Ray Stevenson doesn’t talk a great deal in this film and I guess that’s appropriate as The Punisher isn’t usually one of the more vocal superheroes from the Marvel comics. The villains are pretty good and Jigsaw in particular is quite entertaining and the make-up is fairly creative. I think the villains in the other “Punisher” films lacked personality so in that respect, this film is a genuine improvement. Wayne Knight (“Rat Race”) is alright as The Punisher’s sidekick. The other characters are okay but they are nothing special.

Now, maybe this is just another really violent comic book film but I enjoyed this one a lot more than films such as “Blade” and “Dredd” because it seems that it is more about the actual action rather than the blood and guts so the emphasis is right. It’s not a terrific film but if you want to see a good action film with plenty of creative shootouts then this seems like a fairly good choice to me. It glides through the action scenes and it doesn’t ruin anything by making everything overly dramatic like 2004’s “The Punisher”.