I've never read the comic it's based on so I'll not even attempt to compare movie to comic book. On it's own, this version of The Punisher is destinied for my Cheesey Scale. Standard tale of revenge on top of revenge, one guy with nothing to loose versus the local Big Crime Guy, it's a plot that's almost become a genre unto itself.

That's not to say it wasn't entertaining. Sure, some of the dialogue is almost by the numbers, sure it's becoming a fad where everyone has to right his name or superhero symbol in fire after a really big crime bust, sure every hero needs his defining silliloquy there at the end (in this case ending with "Frank Castle is dead. I am... The Punisher"- and cue dramatic music), but taking into account that's it's basically a video comic book, you can ignore the rather standard exchanged between characters and the excessive if also rather standard gratuitous gun-violence, then it's not all that bad.

Johan Travolta does rather good as the Big Crime Guy, putting in more effort at acting then the script writers did at their job. Plenty of time spent on building up to the title character's motivation, though that part of it could have been tightened up a bit and a bit more effort on Castle getting into his alter ego. For most of the latter half of the film it all looks just like some standard vigilante goingit alone after the Mob, no different than dozens of other non-comic-book-inspired films. he doesn't get into his full comstume and declare himself as The Punisher until the End Credits are about to role. If he had gotten into his comic book mode during the film then maybe the whole thing would have had more character. As it is, the only thing that keeps it from being just another vendetta movie is Travolta's performance. Nothing else special about it, though nothing particularly bad either.

On my Cheesey Scale it's about a Motzarrella.