I will watch all 3 Punisher movies as Punisher is one of my all-time favorite comic characters. (Yes, I tend to lean more towards 2nd and 3rd tier characters.) The 1989 was on too low of a budget to succeed and also it was direct-to-video which is never a good thing. Lundgren did a good job capturing the no-nonsense essence of the character but the script just was poor. Jane to me was a perfect Frank Castle and a great Punisher. People need to remember that in that one, you see the evolution of the Punisher, whereas the 1st one and the 3rd one already have him full blown Punisher. So obviously there are going to be softer moments as Frank Castle and the family scenes, etc. To me it added more depth and impetus to become the Punisher. The Jane one was based off some of the Garth Ennis tales and art by Bradstreet and I just really liked it. The 2007? 2008? version for me was void of anything other than pure violence which was too far in that direction. The comic is violent but Jane balanced out the character and even Lundgren did a better job in my opinion. Ray was too stoic and the script was terrible. I see why Jane passed on it. I know he didn't like the 1st draft, then they got rid of the director and there was a state of limbo and Jane wrote some letter to the fans saying that he couldn't wait around forever and that the script they were going to do, he just couldn't stand by, so he left the project. (Jane's a big comic fan himself, particularly The Rocketeer.) So it sucks as we never got to see Jane in a full-blown Punisher movie after the origin tale.
