Hello guys and welcome to a new 2020 movie review (Yes I know by the time I post this it’s 2021 but you know what I mean). Now as I go through the 2020 releases that I saw today we will be looking at one of the comic book movie to have come out last year right when theater began to close down due to the pandemic, Bloodshot. For those who don’t know Bloodshot is a character from the very popular comic book company, Valiant Comics, and this right here was actually at one point in time intended to be the start of a cinematic universe based around Valiant Comics and it’s characters with Harbinger being another one that was planned. But apparently Paramount owns the rights to Harbinger while Sony did Bloodshot so I have no idea whether or not those movies will be connected but that’s a whole other story right there. Anyway it’s a project that I’ve been aware of for a while and I was a little curious to see how it would turn out as I’ve heard so many great things about the source material. So was Vin Diesel able to deliver a successful franchise starter out of the gate? Eh not quite. I mean I didn’t fin it terrible by any means but nor did surpass any huge expectations either. Let’s see what went on in this long awaited origin and what did, and didn’t work for me.
The movie starts off with a military rescue operation in Mombasa led by U.S. soldier, Ray Garrison, who successfully rescues the hostages. After this he meets up with his wife, Gina, to go and settle down in an Italian beachside town for a bit, however this little trip is interrupted by a group of mercenaries kidnap the two of them. They are led by someone named Martin Axe who demands Ray to tell him how the military knew about the hostage situation which is information that Ray doesn’t know. Axe then kills Gina right in front of Ray who vows revenge against him before he is seemingly killed as well. Turns out that is not the case as Ray wakes up in some sort of lab not remembering anything about who he is. It is here where he is introduced to one Dr. Emil Harting who tells Ray more about where he is and why as Ray is the first successful subject to have undergone the “Bloodshot” program at RST Labs in which he is resurrected and comes back with special healing abilities thanks to the injection of nanite technology in his bloodstream. After telling him the rules, and limitations of this brand new power Harding introduces Ray to fellow patients who are all also fellow military personal. While understandably taken aback by all of this at first he soon remembers what happened to Gina and decides to use his new found powers to enact his revenge on Axe and does so successfully. However there is much more going on under the surface than Ray thinks and it’s up to him to figure out what to do, and fight back against the real enemy in all of this.
Just to note something quickly if you have not seen any of the trailers for this and are curious to see this then I will be talking about a major plot point that is given away in the marketing (though many of you probably have seen the trailer and know what I’m referring to). So the specific plot point I’m talking about is the “twist” where it turns out that Ray is actually being used by Dr. Harding to take down people he, and RST Labs want dead for their own nefarious purposes and is using his wife’s supposed death in the same scenario to make him take them out, wiping his memory each time he does a job. Now admittedly this is actually a pretty neat, and interesting subversion on this type of story which has been done many times before that in concept has a lot of potential and there are some funny moments stemming from how Harding and his team try to change things up just a little bit every time and how they go about making fun of revenge stories like this. Unfortunately the fact that this was given away in the trailers takes away a lot of the surprise from that reveal and the fact that it was featured so heavily in the marketing made me assume there would be more going on but nope it just goes through the beast associated with this kind of story. Even then it still didn’t do anything too interesting with those promising ideas and mainly just goes through the motions when it comes to the story. Another big problem is that I just didn’t care much for Ray Garrison as a character as the movie doesn’t spend a whole lot of time at the beginning to show us much beyond the basics (strong soldier, loving boyfriend, etc.) and while there are some decent attempts at fleshing him out here and there he failed to leave much of an impact. Still though there is some trashy fun to be had at times as the movie can does have it’s entertaining moments here and there and I will give it credit that for a movie that was supposed to start a franchise it’s very stand alone with not much in the way of sequel set up (even if there’s very little in the way of world building) and it wraps up most of it’s plot threads by the end so there’s that. Again this is nothing groundbreaking and I wish it did more with some of it’s cool ideas but as far as origins go this one is squarely mediocre.
I will admit that for those who just want to see Vin Diesel as a super enhanced soldier kick a lot of butt then this does provide a lot of that at the very least. This was directed by David S.F. Wilson and while I’m not very familiar with his work he does bring a bit of style to the action sequences here which for the most part are fun to watch and at times creative. The first act tunnel shoot out may use a little too much slow mow, and staged awkwardly but the chase in the middle involving a lot of technology, and special abilities being utilized is energetic, and fun while the climactic showdown in a building almost feels like a fun video game as the characters jump around elevators. Plus visually speaking there are some are some cool looking scenes here and there that give the movie a bit of a stylistic flair, and I like how Bloodshot’s powers were shown onscreen, though at the same time there is also a lot of poor CGI that did take me out of the movie at times. There’s also a lot scenes where we would constantly cut to people staring at some sort of computer screen and comment on what’s going on which seems to be a weird thing that a lot of action movies nowadays like to do for some reason and it got a little repetitive after a while. Still fans of this sort of thing will probably still enjoy this nonetheless.
When it comes to some of Vin Diesel’s solo vehicles they’ve just never really hooked me all that much. I wasn’t very impressed by offhand the Pacifier, and XXX Return of Xander Cage and while I enjoyed this one a bit more he still hasn’t done one that has completely won me over (granted I still need to see some of the others of his filmography before reaching a complete verdict). While he seems like a really nice guy and I do like him in the Fast and Furious movies, his performance here just didn’t click for me as it came off very wooden and he failed to give the character a lot of emotional depth meaning the scenes that should hit hard don’t really land as well as they should. It’s a shame because he has done better in other works but here he doesn’t do a whole lot to elevate the character (who wasn’t extremely compelling to begin with). He is surrounded by a cast of great talent though and they do well enough with what they have. I thought Guy Pearce was really good as Dr. Harding as he does a good job of seeming like a caring figure who wants to help Ray but in reality is just using him to get what he wants. Even if the character isn’t anything special Pearce does elevate the material given which can also apply to Eiza Gonzalez as KT one of the soldiers who is there due to a severe breathing problem and is the only one who genuinely actually cares about Ray. She actually does bring a lot of the emotional depth that Diesel is just lacking and is one of the more compelling parts of the feature. As for the other two soldiers, Marcus Tibbs (Alexander Hernandez), and Jimmy Dalton (Sam Heughan) their pretty one note henchmen despite some cool abilities although Heughan does seem to be having a lot of fun playing Dalton as the jerk who really hates Ray. Also having a blast is Lamorne Morris’s Wiggins, an infamous, fast talking, hacker who ends up helping out Ray, and while there are times where his little schtick gets a little too much, he still does provides some amusing moments, and jokes. In the end though most of the cast does a fine enough job of adding a bit more to the material though I just wish Diesel was a more entertaining/compelling presence.
As it turns out Bloodshot is a fairly standard super hero origin story that has some cool ideas, a pretty neat twist, some creative action, and visuals, and a couple of solid performances but is held back by it’s unwillingness to explore some of these ideas more, it’s execution of a familiar premise is nothing to write home about, some really poor special effects, and an uninteresting protagonist at it’s center. It’s a pretty mixed bag for me overall and it doesn’t seem like it lives up to it’s acclaimed source material (if you are a fan of the character then I’m curious to hear what you thought of this if you’ve seen it). Still though if you enjoy these types of Vin Diesel actioners or seeing these types of stories then there’s plenty of trashy fun to be had with this. But for me I’ve just seen this type of story handled better many times (like with the 1987 Robocop or Upgrade to name two really great ones) and with more substance, and investment to be had.
Rating: C+
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