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Reviews
Punisher: First Round (2005)
First Round
First Round is a great entry into the sea of independent fan films.
Here, Punisher (Corey Sosner) and Wolverine (Eric Von Sydow) meet and even battle it out. There are also appearances from Kingpin (Wallace Carter) and Jigsaw (Eddie Yaghen).
The action is quick, and clean, and Wolverine and Punisher duke it out pretty well. Von Sydow does a decent job portraying Logan (this is not the Wolverine with a costume on, this is the bar brawling civilian version). His hairstyle is dead on, and his mutant healing factor is shown creatively here.
The main credits had GREAT creative titling along with cool moving comic book panels that told Frank Castle's story of how the Punisher came to be by then end of the main credits, so no time is "wasted".
Sosner's Punisher is a much better version that the Hollywood Thomas Jayne's version (no disrespect to Jayne) in terms of the costume. The trademark skull on the torso looks more... memorable than a T-shirt with a skull in Jayne's version. Punisher dishes out death ala pistol, M16, and Rambo knife.
Although the actual film is short, there are a number of behind-the-scenes goodies that should entertain and give insight to those who dream of producing their own films. You can also tell that these guys had fun making this short film.
On a side note, I appreciated Corey's personal attention to my questions through email. He came across as an easy going guy, and someone I would enjoy meeting one day.