By transcending what it appears to be, Netflix's The Punisher turns out surprisingly great

Variety

At first, the Marvel series seems like another misstep, says Sonia Soraiya. “In the television landscape at large, another overwhelmingly gray and brutally violent show centered on a dysfunctional antihero is superfluous,” she says. “Within the superhero genre, it’s even more so. But The Punisher transcends what it appears to be. Not completely, and not always; this is still a very violent show, saturated in tortured masculinity ... But thanks to Jon Bernthal’s seamless performance as the non-superpowered vigilante Frank Castle and showrunner Steve Lightfoot’s sharp, conscious storytelling, The Punisher approaches the high points of Marvel’s Jessica Jones by introducing a damaged, deadly character and telling his story as one piece of an unjust whole.”

ALSO:

• It’s a surprisingly sensitive look at what it’s like to be a soldier
• It glosses over The Punisher’s violent vigilante's murderous tendencies with a compelling conspiracy thriller
• Bernthal’s Punisher is perfect for a four- to six-hour miniseries, but 13 episodes is stretching it
• “The good stuff is surrounded by an imaginatively impoverished wasteland”