I mean it has alot of good parts and it's some funny shit, I enjoy the ridiculousness (like the ninjas going down a slide firing uzis), but the '04 is more credible to me. I just think Tom Jane is great in the role, I love the fight with the big dude in the striped shirt, the evil mariachi who interrupts his breakfast, the fact that they not only gun down his family, but HIS ENTIRE EXTENDED FAMILY at the reunion. In the opening scene Punisher loses more loved ones than Charles Bronson did in the entire DEATH WISH series. But Jane still treats the role like it's a serious drama.

I haven't rewatched the movie since the first time, or seen the director's cut. Maybe when I go back remembering it as great instead of assuming it will be shit I will be harder on it, who knows. I hope not. But those are some of the reasons I like that one.

Bullet, you are very right, I agree with you. That's a part of the death of action. The other part is that when you do get action-packed movies most of the time the action is indecipherable and impossible to get wrapped up in, at least for me. I'm not just talking about Michael Bay either, I really thought about that while sitting there completely bored through DOOMSDAY. Action movies need to go to rehab.

But now he's gone crazy, more and more he's just the stupid guy getting in baby arguments with other rappers and he can't learn to drive properly. He even got busted by the humane society for not feeding those dogs. Maybe he deserves to be in THE LAST HOUR. At least he didn't say "I love George Bush, he's a gangsta" like 50 Cent did.

Even moreso for Tupac it's those contradictions that made him fascinating to people. He's got "THUG LIFE" tattooed on his chest with bullets but he has these big feminine eyes. He's screaming "fuck the world" and then he has a song about how much he loves his mama or how Brenda's got a baby. Tupac was smarter than DMX ever was though. His mother was a Black Panther so he was very political when he was younger. In the Experience Music Project in Seattle there's an essay he wrote in school about the meaning of America. You can see that he was thinking about big ideas even as a kid. He was also a much better actor than DMX (although he couldn't have done EXIT WOUNDS). But after he got rich and especially after Suge Knight got him out of jail he just got more and more into stupid shit and that was popular so that's what he's remembered for.

But I think it's the combination of the evil and good Tupac that has made him so memorable. You don't hear people talking about Eazy E that much even though Tupac never made an album as good as Straight Outta Compton if you ask me. But he had more dimensions to him than Eazy.

the end.