Marvel‘s Punisher: One Last Kill is a big topic of conversation online after last night’s premiere, but not for the reasons you’d expect. I’ve not seen the latest Special Presentation from Marvel yet. Still, according to reports (and an army of cackling fans), the final product contains what appear to be “unfinished” elements, resulting in audio mixing issues and a VFX shot that looks like a PlayStation cutscene.
Punisher says what?
Online comments are taking the audio issues to task, with one viewer saying, “I could not hear a damn thing audio-wise in The Punisher special.” At the same time, another wrote, “The surround sound speakers are configured wrong,” and finally, “The center channel is coming out of the rear, and the levels are wonky as well.”
The good news? Disney is aware of the problem and issued a response to concerned fans online, saying, “Thank you for reaching out and letting us know you’re experiencing no audio while watching The Punisher: One Last Kill. The good news is that our team knows about this particular issue and is working on a solution as we speak. Let us know if we can help with anything else!”
The shot heard ’round the internet
That’s all well and good, but there’s another problem. What appears to be an “unfinished” VFX shot of Frank Castle being pushed out of a building and falling onto a silver crate is somehow included in the final product. Fans are mocking the scene, saying Frank looks like a ragdoll glitch from an early-PlayStation-era cutscene, his arms flailing to and fro upon impact.
“It genuinely looks like a GTA cutscene,” one commenter wrote. “It looks like a test version of some Joel cutscene for [PlayStation’s] The Last of Us,” said another. “Marvel ‘accidentally’ dropping unfinished VFX in 2026 is crazy — Jon Bernthal is out here doing God-tier Punisher rage but they hit him with PS3 ragdoll physics,” said another flabbergasted fan.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the shot is real, which is positively wild to me. Straight up, it looks terrible. I don’t blame people for calling it out one bit. Marvel told THR Bernthal performed the beginning of the fall, and his stuntman took over for the impact shot. There is some face-swapping VFX in the scene, too, but still, it looks like trash. You can see the shot for yourself below. I’m still marveling at how poorly executed it is.
Thankfully, Punisher: One Last Kill is still winning over fans and critics. Our good little review boy, Alex Maidy, gave the movie an 8 out of 10 in his review, which you can read for yourself here.
What do you think of the wonky VFX shot? Let us know in the comments!
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