{"id":53082,"date":"2026-05-13T21:32:30","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T01:32:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=53082"},"modified":"2026-05-13T21:32:40","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T01:32:40","slug":"punisher-one-last-kill-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/13\/punisher-one-last-kill-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"The Punisher: One Last Kill [2026]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Frank Castle continues to wrestle with his past, both in his family and repercussions from his vigilantism, in Reinaldo Marcus Green\u2019s underwhelming Punisher: One Last Kill, now on Disney+.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

TW: Animal Death (and buttloads of nasty violence, but it’s Punisher so you know that)<\/span><\/p>\n

Frank Castle, aka The Punisher, the Marvel anti-hero who debuted in Amazing Spider-Man #129 in 1974, created by Gerry Conway and John Romita, Jr., has often been a foil for Daredevil<\/a>. He and Matt Murdock have similar goals but very different ways of getting there. That\u2019s what makes such a trigger-happy ball of anger and righteousness interesting to watch: how he deals when working against others nearly aligned with his output.\u00a0 His films, with Dolph Lungren<\/a>, Thomas Jane<\/a>, and Ray Stevenson<\/a>, all have their pluses and minuses (I really enjoy the over-the-top of War Zone<\/a>, TBH), but they don\u2019t bring a lot to the character and what he is going through and why. With few people to really talk to, none truly exist as a depth of character, instead using Castle and his vengeance as a vehicle for ultraviolence. But with Berentahl, he made it his own with a grounded, troubled man of war in an existing setting, working with and against the other Marvel TV heroes and villains.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s where I note I\u2019ve not watched his eponymous show of the Netflix Marvel days, only as seen in the other interconnected works on Netflix and Disney+, mostly within Daredevil on either end of that network divide. So I can\u2019t speak to how much of a solo act he is there.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Alone again, no other heroes are present. One Last Kill, directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green, misses the push-pull of morality in favor of a more straightforward tale. While it does give character growth and insight, although familiar and kinda rote in that aspect, it doesn\u2019t deliver on the promises of the overall plot, for what it is.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Photo courtesy of Marvel. \u00a9 2026 Marvel. All Rights Reserved.<\/p><\/div>\n

Punisher: One Last Kill functions like a one-shot (heh, no pun intended) comic. Its story is self-contained to this moment, not required as part of a currently running arc; dropping in to a character for a moment of a specific story, character note, or other use. One Last Kill, fitting between his time on Daredevil Born Again and this summer\u2019s theatrical release of Spider-Man<\/a>: Brand New Day, allows a bridge for the character and his placement in the series, getting out of a rut and a reset of circumstances.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve really enjoyed Jon Beranthal\u2019s portrayal of Frank Castle. He gives The Punisher a gravelly soul, of wearing his loss under the gruff and angry exterior. Bernthal knows him well, so much so that he\u2019s a co-writer of One Last Kill along with Green (they pull a bit from an uncredited Garth Ennis’s excellent Welcome Back, Frank). One Last Kill is best when it doesn\u2019t focus on the action shot-em-up beats we know will come eventually, as it is Punisher after all, but in Castle\u2019s continuing issues of letting go. Bernthal\u2019s Punisher is a haunted man, filled with an immense, unending sense of pain. Castle is trying to get away from the murder machine part of him, having closed his revenge cycle. That closure in the NYC crime world has not given him closure in his mind, cycling with his memories. And the death of all the men in a crime family is not closure for the one remaining member of the family, the one who killed his own. It comes to that remaining member to find their closure by setting Castle up to die (like so many before). It comes to a whole lot of other people mad at him are coming to visit his revealed location, a basement apartment in a neighborhood where crime is so rampant that no police ever come, no matter what happens; the lawless branch of society Fox News nuts drool over. Uh oh.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Photo courtesy of Marvel. \u00a9 2026 Marvel. All Rights Reserved.<\/p><\/div>\n

Once the big push: the John Wick<\/a> nature of everyone coming after Castle, One Last Kill flattens, and the concept is lost.\u00a0 A whole pile of killers and criminals heading towards Frank, and he has to get out of the apartment building, not unlike Dredd or The Raid? Awesome. But such action is boilerplate in use. More of the same, although hyper-violent with some interesting moments, it\u2019s empty and lacks a build or pay-off. It almost feels like the interest in the team was in the first half, and the violent bang-bang bits are more for \u201cwe need this for Punisher or people riot.\u201d The action is fine, well-choreographed, bloody, and clever, and will placate those here for the shoot \u2018em up. But it\u2019s a down after the strength of the first half, becoming a bang-bang without any real flare, or threat of danger, or even a climax; said driving action just stops. To quote Pitch Meeting, \u201csuper easy, barely an inconvenience.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Punisher: One Last Kill is an unnecessary and ultimately empty side-quest for the character, offering little new. While I appreciate Bernthal\u2019s performance, it\u2019s not a great use of the character or a special hour (okay, 48 minutes) given to him away from the team-ups of the bigger MCU. I can tell how much Berenthal cares and understands the character. Even if I didn\u2019t like the overall special, I look forward to whatever comes next.\u00a0Punisher: One Last Kill is now streaming on Disney+.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Frank Castle continues to wrestle with his past, both in his family and repercussions from his vigilantism, in Reinaldo Marcus Green\u2019s underwhelming Punisher: One Last Kill, now on Disney+.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[58,221,302],"class_list":["post-53082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-action","tag-comic-book","tag-drama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53082"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53087,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53082\/revisions\/53087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}