Movie Critics

WASHINGTON -- I love my job. The worst movie I saw last year in my capacity as film critic? "Punisher: War Zone." Here's a film that inspired a critic from USA Today to ask, "Why punish us?" A film that features, in the role of the comic-book vigilante of the title, Ray Stevenson -- I had the same reaction: who? -- jamming a pencil up his nose to reset some broken cartilage. It's accompanied by a wet, gristly sound effect that suggests someone deboning a chicken. And yet I say: Thank God.