‘The Punisher’ Early Buzz: Critics Are Split On Whether This Is The Best Or The Worst Marvel Netflix Series
By Hoai-Tran Bui/Nov. 13, 2017 8:28 am EST
The only universally acknowledged elements of The Punisher seem to be the acclaimed performance by Bernthal and the ill timing of the series, which was delayed after the events of the Las Vegas mass shooting. Otherwise, critics seem to be shooting their opinions left and right, without much consensus on whether the series is actually good. Is it an ambitious, grounded TV show that tackles issues of psychological trauma in soldiers? Or is it a sluggish, overly long series with an hollow message?
Read some of the early reviews of The Punisher to find out.
Our review of The Punisher is incoming, but writer Chris Evangelista has some not-too-kind words for the series ahead of his review’s release.
The Daily Dot’s Gavia Baker-Whitelaw also compared the series to the worst-reviewed Marvel-Netflix property, Iron Fist, calling the series “dull and politically flawed”:
An excess of episodes to tell a dearth of story is an ongoing problem for all of the Marvel-Netflix series, not to mention most Netflix shows in general. But unlike Jessica Jones or Daredevil which start strong only to taper off halfway through, The Punisher suffers from a meandering start, Uproxx’s Alan Sepinwall says:
The Punisher has more in common with Iron Fist than Jessica Jones or Luke Cage, although I wouldn’t insult Punisher with a direct comparison. Where Iron Fist was painfully incompetent, The Punisher is just slow and overly long, failing to grasp the power of its title character. It also suffers from a recurring problem in Marvel’s Netflix franchise: uninspired crime writing. Madani’s investigation was simple yet hard to follow, often seeming to “discover” something we already knew.
Sepinwall was one of the many critics to point out the poor timing of The Punisher, whose glorifying depiction of gun violence comes on the tail of several devastating mass shootings in the U.S. Indiewire’s Liz Shannon Miller wrote about the show seemed to skirt its controversial trappings as well.
As has unfortunately been the case with Daredevil and the Marvel shows that followed it, Punisher has many more episodes than story to fill them with. Though Netflix provided critics with the whole first season in advance, I ran out of patience after six episodes; they featured maybe enough material to justify three episodes, and probably two. Where the early shows like Jessica Jones and Luke Cage tended to start strong before running out of steam, the last few like this, Iron Fist and Defenders, have simply started slowly and then meandered from there.
However, an equal amount of reviwers raved about The Punisher’s grounded tone and secluded corner in the MCU, with Forbes going so far as to call it “the best MCU series” ever made:
For a show which seemed, given the timing of its launch, to be so controversial, its most controversial element is its lack of controversy. Frank Castle does some bad things, but nothing as bad as what happens in America on a regular basis. As a narrative about veterans trying to find their place in the world, “The Punisher” has something to say. But it could have been so much shorter, and its placement in the Marvel universe feels tangential at best.
Variety’s Sonia Saraiya is in agreement, praising the gritty and realistic tone of the series:
Comic Book’s Kofi Outlaw acknowledged that The Punisher falls victims to some of the flaws of the Marvel-Netflix formula, but calls the series the next greatest series after the similarly gritty and psychological Jessica Jones:
Of the positive reviews, Polygon’s Susana Polo seems the most uncertain of whether The Punisher’s strengths outweigh its flaws:
The Wrap, however, is confident that the various subplots in The Punisher are expertly connected, with the series threatening to dethrone Jessica Jones as the best Marvel Netflix series:
The Punisher’s first episode is sleepy and repetitive; nothing in it is anything we didn’t see in the second season of Daredevil. Along those same lines, The fifth and sixth episodes already drag more than the others, an indication of the usual mid-season Netflix slump. But at least Punisher’s repetitive beginning is part of the first narratively necessary step in the show’s plot: moving the goalpost on Frank’s revenge.
Collider tells fans to “proceed with cautious optimism” for the series, which is at its strongest when Bernthal is at his most vulnerable and violent:
The Punisher is possibly the most polarizing Netflix series we’ve seen yet, with reviewers heaping both effusive praise and criticism for the Marvel show. At least we can count on star Jon Bernthal to reprise his tour-de-force performance that he originated in Daredevil season 2 — and which got him the spin-off in the first place. The uneven plotting and controversial timing of the series is up in the air, however, and may or may not miss its target.The Punisher is set to hit Netflix on November 17, 2017.
