Who doesn’t like a good revenge story especially when you get awesome fight scenes and a lot of good action. I mean, as nerds, that’s why we love The Punisher. And that’s exactly what Jennifer Garner’s film Peppermint really is… she’s the female Punisher. Yeah, I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but I’m already going to tell you that this movie is predictable. It doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it. But, hey we’ve seen this story before.

I’m won’t say that I didn’t like the movie Peppermint… It’s very entertaining and Jennifer Garner is pretty awesome. If you loved her in Alias then you will definitely love her in this movie. There’s a lot of Sidney Bristow in this movie. The basic plot is a mother who watched her husband and daughter get gunned down by drug dealers and decides to take revenge on them when they are not brought to Justice buy a corrupt court system. She basically disappears for 5 years and becomes a warrior, hunting those who wronged her and helping to save innocence from violent criminals. Sounds like the Punisher to me. that’s not necessarily a bad thing cuz Jennifer Garner definitely looks better and she is badass in this movie. but I do criticize the plot a little bit because again, we’ve seen this before and I’d rather just go watch The Punisher series on Netflix.

What this movie has going for it is great action scenes and I already expected that because it’s done by the same producers who did the taken movies. The movie is not played by shaky camera footage like some action movies and it flows well for the most part. Jennifer Garner and the rest of the cast are pretty good. But make no mistake about it, this is a Jennifer Garner movie and she is the only one that we are meant to really care about. In some ways it feels like a remake of Death Wish and even though we’ve already had that this year with Bruce Willis, this is the stronger film with the same template. I definitely would rather watch her get revenge for killing her family then in the god-awful Bruce Willis remake of Death Wish.

As fun as this movie is it does have its problems. It is far from perfect and although I am not going to assign blame to the director or the cast, I think the editor gets the full blame. This is another classic example of a movie that looks completely different from what it is after having watched the trailer. There was a certain poetry this movie was supposed to have including a poem about Peppermint that added to a strong narrative with the main character. We don’t have any of that in the actual movie. We don’t need to know anything about her except that she’s pissed off and getting revenge and has great action scenes. That’s a shame because you’ve made her a boring one-dimensional character. I can enjoy the action, but should  care about her character development and this movie doesn’t make me want to do that. I feel like the biggest problem is the fact that we don’t know anything about her training, how did she go from being a scared soccer mom to the badass that she is and if the Rocky movies taught us anything, the training montage is just as important as the fight itself in the movie. Or you can use Star Wars as an example, would we care at all about the Jedi if we didn’t see them training and going through their struggles…. that’s why Empire Strikes Back is the better story because we get to see Luke’s training… We don’t get that with Peppermint and were made to accept that she’s just now a badass. So that’s the biggest question for me after watching this movie as well what the hell was she doing for 5 years to transform herself. Sure we get a few snippets including an MMA fight in Singapore, but it seems unbelievable because we don’t actually see her developing that lethal skill set.

Peppermint is NOT all out terrible movie, itbut it loses its luster because there isn’t any good strong character development with her training. Also you make one quick little reference to Peppermint ice which isn’t enough cause to make it the title of the movie. if all you want to do is just make an action movie that is similar to The Punisher or Death Wish, that’s fine, but your trailer doesn’t need to sell me some kind of poetic movie and existential question about vigilantism. Just tell me that this is an action movie and the only thing I’m supposed to care about is how she kills everybody. So yes the editor gets the blame for this movie being less than stellar. It could have been so much more, and you reduced it to an action movie that I won’t remember in 2 weeks. You know the accountant with Ben Afflec had a lot of great action scenes, but what made it a great movie was the backstory of how this math genius with a bit of Asperger’s became a warrior and what drove him. You got to see that all through flashbacks. And it only added about 15 minutes to the movie which didn’t really make the movie that long. I think that’s my real disappointed with peppermint is I was expecting something like that and then just kind of action for me. Like a televangelist, I’ve been sold a bill of goods. Jennifer Garner wasn’t really that good as Elektra from the Marvel Universe, but at least in her solo movie we got a backstory.

If you see this moving, see a matinee or just way to rent it at Redbox because that’s all it’s really worth. If they do make a sequel then fire your editor and give us the backstory that we need in order to believe in her character development so that she’s not one-dimensional. there’s always more to a person who just wants revenge then the simple “I’m going to go on a killing spree and that’s the end of my story.” You could watch the first Crow movie which came out in 1994 as a good example of what to do. or even the Punisher movie with Thomas Jane.. I want to like this movie more, but I just can’t. It had all the potential to be an 8 because of the trailer and now it’s just been reduced to a 6… It’s adequate enough for an action movie and that’s it.