I never saw the latest one, War Zone, where the dude actually looked like the Punisher. How was it? Bad I suppose, considering your love of Thomas Jane. The only good part of that movie was when his family got killed. That was a good scene. Wasnt Jigsaw in the newer one too?
It was awful. Stevenson can act, but the Director obviously hadn't read up on his source material. The storyline was amazingly bad. I loved the 2004 version because it had great story, great Direction and believable performances. (Ok - action a bit over the top, but please. The guy had his family murdered, and was borderline psychotic/suicidal.) Thomas Jane was tapped for the sequel, but because it went through a bunch of rewrites and such, he saw the quality of the script and passed. He even went so far as to say something the likes of, "the fans deserve better, and I won't be part of something that the fans won't like - because I'm a fan too".
Jigsaw was so poorly mishandled, it was ridiculous. His backstory in the comics was good, but instead, in the movie, they chose to give him the "Joker" treatment. A quick scene to say "omg he's mangled now" and that's it. And don't get me started with Wayne Knight as Microchip.
I disagree with your point of the 'good parts' in the 2004 version - Garth Ennis had written some amazing material in the comic (the Russian, for example) that was translated to screen. Those fight scenes were pretty good. Frank got his ass handed to him for the most part - as would be expected - but in the end, his luck prevailed... That, and the hanging Jimmy Duka scene. I howled at that. It was great.