The perfect antidote to Marvel’s messy multiverse

Whether you size it up from quality, box office, or pure coherence, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is in a serious slump. After the incredible highs of Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, which brilliantly connected a decade of cinematic storytelling to close out multiple character arcs and plotlines with a satisfying conclusion, the MCU charted a new course forward into what would eventually be titled “The Multiverse Saga.” Phases 4 through 6, which are set to culminate with two more Avengers movies (Doomsday this December and Secret Wars a year after that), has been marred by controversy, death, and some of the worst movies to ever come out of Marvel Studios.

The hope is Doomsday can set things right and give the MCU the momentum it desperately needs. Or maybe Marvel doesn’t need to course correct in the most obvious way, considering it just quietly released an excellent new movie that you can enjoy even if you have no interest in anything that’s been going on in the Multiverse Saga.

Well, calling it a movie is a bit of a stretch. The Punisher: One Last Kill, streaming now on Disney Plus, is a “Marvel Special Presentation” like Michael Giacchino’s horror throwback Werewolf By Night before it. In the style of an old-school TV special or a one-shot comic, it’s a 48-minute-long story starring Jon Bernthal as Frank Castle, aka The Punisher, a character he first played in 2016 as a supporting role on Netflix’s The Daredevil. Since then, we’ve seen The Punisher in his own Netflix series and on Daredevil: Born Again (the MCU’s continuation of the Netflix show). He’s also in the upcoming movie Spider-Man: Brand New Day. But in the meantime, Frank gets maybe his best MCU entry yet in One Last Kill.

The plot of One Last Kill is remarkably compact. Contained within a roughly 48-hour window, it picks up where Netflix’s The Punisher left off. After the violent vigilante successfully took down the crime syndicates that killed his family, bloody mayhem has erupted in the streets of what was once a mafia-controlled neighborhood called Little Sicily. Frank mostly keeps to himself despite the chaos he’s caused, but when the surviving widow of a mob boss he murdered puts a hit on him, he has no choice but to fight for his survival.

At about the halfway point, The Punisher: One Last Kill really picks up as a seemingly endless stream of hitmen and assorted criminals and killers charge into Frank’s apartment complex, murdering anyone who gets in their way. Frank springs into action and proceeds to murder at least 100 people as he makes his way out of his apartment and down to the street where Little Scicily has become a warzone. This sequence, with a brutality and gory splashiness King Richard director Reinaldo Marcus Green maintains for roughly 20 minutes, is incredible to watch. The action is both smooth and unrelenting, combining the best of Daredevil and its iconic hallway scene with the sort of gunfighting associated with a John Wick movie. Each kill feels unique and memorable, and each stunt feels like a punch to the gut — including one moment where Frank falls from a building and smashes headfirst into a bus.

Ultimately, The Punisher: One Last Kill is pure action movie spectacle. The plot hardly matters. There’s no Easter eggs, cameos, or a post-credits scene promising that “Frank Castle will return.” Heck, you don’t even need to have watched Netflix’s Daredevil or The Punisher to enjoy One Last Kill, although this Special Presentation may inspire you to go back and enjoy that simpler era of the MCU.

With Spider-Man: Brand New Day and Avengers: Doomsday both primed to weave together countless plotlines and characters in the service of Marvel’s Multiverse Saga, The Punisher: One Last Kill feels like a pre-emptive breath of fresh air. It’s a reminder that not every entry in the MCU needs to connect to everything else to be great, and an argument for more one-shot stories like this one that don’t require the type of homework even the most die-hard Marvel fans seem increasingly uninterested in doing.

The Punisher: One Last Kill is streaming now on Disney Plus.