Why punish audiences?

Why?

This movie didn’t have to be so terrible.

Yes, the 2004 Thomas Jane-starring “Punisher” film had its problems, but it laid a solid base for a good sequel. So why did everyone involved in that project jump ship so quickly, leaving their jobs to be filled by second-raters who have never worked on anything like this before? We may never know, but one thing we do know is that the quality of this film can be best described as “straight to DVD.”

For starters, “Punisher: War Zone” has a terrible script. The original draft was reworked and rewritten at the behest of producers until all that was left was unrecognizable schlock. It discards the previous movie and retells the story of Frank Castle, whose family is murdered by the mob and vows to take revenge.

After years of killing every mafia family in New York, he is down to the dregs, a collection of bad Italian stereotypes and slicked-back widow’s peaks.

Not enough? OK, let’s throw one of them into a glass grinder that cuts up his face, turning him into the villain Jigsaw (yes, you read that right). And let’s give him a brother (how do we know they’re related? Because they refer to each other as “brother” every chance they get) named “Looney Bin Jim” who shows us how crazy he is by talking really slow.

This movie is truly terrible on every level. It vacillates between gritty realistic action movie, gore-filled splatterfest, and outright (unintentional) comedy. The acting is terrible, apart from Ray Stevenson’s Frank Castle, who doesn’t act at all beyond pasting a stoic tough-guy look on his face.

The dialogue is painful, but who doesn’t love a movie that ends with, “Oh God, now I’ve got brains splattered all over me”?

The directing is poor, and the plot is a stunningly complete collection of easily fixed action-movie cliches: inept bad guys with poor aim, heroes making stupid decisions because it will “look cool,” etc.

The film is anything but subtle, wielding both gory action and forced emotion with equal brutality to bludgeon audiences senseless.

The only thing missing from this crap-fest is Shaquille O’Neal and Keanu Reeves, but even without those two horrendous actors, “Punisher: War Zone” will still take its place as one of the most hilariously bad movies to ever grace the big screen.