The Punisher and Film

Has anyone else wondered exactly why it seems that the Punisher has never really spawned a very good movie version?

Granted - Frank Castle has always been sort of the black sheep of the Marvel universe but honestly I find him 1000 times more interesting than Spiderman, Iron Man, or even Captain America. I just recently finished up reading through Garth Ennis' The Punisher MAX series and this collection more than any other seems to have really defined the character the best: it's brutal, violent, and unrelenting...

So...why has there not been a good Punisher movie?

Granted I've actually never seen the 1989 or 2008 film (but I have seen the 2004 one) but the consensus seems to be that they're not worth seeing in the first place. The 2004 film was a little underwhelming and didn't really feel like it was The Punisher...Thomas Jane didn't fit the part and at times the movie felt too comic-book like.

I don't understand why it seems impossible for them to make a good film about The Punisher. I guess first they need to find the right actor. Jane certainly wasn't and Stevenson (despite his badass-ery in Rome) just didn't do anything for me - I look at him and I don't think "oh that's the Punisher".

I think Mickey Rourke would make a good Frank Castle if they fixed him up a little. Rourke's proven that he's good at being that no-nonsense badass kind of character that'll easily kill you then rip your guts out (Marv in Sin City). I guess the only trouble would be making sure Rourke doesn't turn Castle into a wise cracking killer...which is something that the Punisher isn't.

I just hope that one day we'll get an acceptable, brutal, dark Punisher film that does the character and the series justice.

No more live action comic book movies. If they make any more, they need to be 100% CGI with a Marvel in-house art team leading the design, or go all the way and create their own Marvel-Pixar studio. I would then support Mickey Rourke in a voice acting role and Uwe Bohl as the director.

Just kidding about that last part. Sorry.

Punisher IMO doesn't make sense within Marvel itself.

There's no way he could survive for more than a couple of years when he's killing off all the employees of someone like Kingpin. Even if he did, there's no reason the other heroes would let him continue doing what he does, everyone pretty much finds him disgusting.

EDIT: However, more to the point of the thread, although I don't think Punisher makes a very good monthly comic book hero, it would work fine for a movie, they just haven't quite gotten it right yet. And CGI isn't necessary, it's the punisher, why would it need to be CGI?

Because The Punisher is like 90% of B-Movie action fare already out there. Cop loses his family and goes on a revenge killing spree? What great things do you expect to get out of that premise?

...and at times the movie felt too comic-book like.

Surely a big problem of any comic-book adaption.