Spiderman can snare his victims in a web of titanium steel threads. The X-Men tap into vast reserves of telekinetic might. Yet The Punisher has no superpowers.

In his global crusade to bop every wrong-doer and swat the next villainous swine, he has just one driving force at his disposal. He's mega-miffed.

And he's mega-miffed for a good reason. He saw an SUV-full of sneering goons run over his wife and young son in an execution he was powerless to prevent.

Now it's payback time and former undercover federal agent Frank Castle has gone to ground while he fine-tunes his plans for bloody revenge.

Top of the list for retribution is Howard Saint (Travolta), a drug-smuggling kingpin, and his vicious wife Livia (Laura Harring), who personally stipulated that Frank's family should be rubbed out.

They were, understandably, a little put out themselves when an arms-smuggling sting involving Castle resulted in the death of their son. So no-one's very happy.

This first hit the big screen in 1989 with Dolph Lundgren in the title role but director Jonathan Hensleigh - the writer behind Armageddon and Die Hard: With A Vengeance - makes a far better fist of things.

The choice of Tom Jane, a journeyman star of Deep Blue Sea and Dreamcatcher, to play Castle - a cross between Johnny Cash and The Terminator - is sound by virtue of the fact he carries no celebrity baggage.

Hensleigh also had a cartoonish take on the action - it's all cause with little discernible disabling effect played by characters - particularly Saint's henchmen - who look as if they've leapt from Marvel Comics' pages.

Disappointingly, the last reel sees the violence tip over from comic book into the blood-drenched territory familiar to fans of Death Wish and First Blood.

Nevertheless, until Hensleigh breaks into the bloodbank it's a heady mix of action, humour and grief-fuelled vengeance.

Even if you would question the judgement of a man who tells his family they'll move to London - "a safe place where we can be together."

Tim Evans