Bloodshot provides some thrilling action-sequences with impressive visual effects, but fails to provide the character development that other comic book based films have succeeded at.
“Ray Garrison is a soldier recently killed in action and brought back to life as the superhero Bloodshot by the RST corporation. With an army of nanotechnology in his veins, he’s an unstoppable force -stronger than ever and able to heal instantly. But in controlling his body, the company has sway over his mind and memories, too. Now, Ray doesn’t know what’s real and what’s not – but he’s on a mission to find out.”
The film opens in Mombasa with a special operations team closing in on a house full of hostiles holding a hostage. Ray Garrison (Vin Diesel) approaches the front door and told to hold position. As the rest of the team follows commands, Ray decides to go in alone and single handedly mops up the situation, rescuing the hostage in a severely idiotic show of dominance. Facing no repercussions on disobeying orders, he and his team fly back to Italy where a stereotypical scantily clad woman waits for him next to a sportscar. They go back and have a passionate night together, and in the morning, he awakens to find her gone and a hit squad moving in on him with weapons that fire syringes. After quickly dispatching them, he runs to the hallway, bumping into what he thinks is a tenant, but is injected with something and passes out. He again awakens to find himself in a meat processing plant, where after witnessing the dumbest dance in history by the guy who injected him, Martin Axe (Toby Kebbell). He’s interrogated about who tipped him off on the hostage, holding his wife in front of him for leverage. When he can’t answer, she’s killed, and so is he, or so we think. He awakens AGAIN after being resurrected by Project Bloodshot by Dr. Emil Harting (Guy Pearce), who explains the nano-bot technology that has turned him into a super-soldier, and introduced to several others who have had ‘upgrades’ done to them. His forgotten memories of his death soon return, thus leading him on a quest for vengeance with his new abilities, but at the end of it, he realizes things aren’t what they seem.
Bloodshot, based on a comic book by the same name, has some pretty interesting ideas incorporating technology-based superheroes into a story, one of the main concepts being the simulation aspect that has been manipulating Ray Garrison in order to target who his benefactors want him to target. In the film, it makes for a fairly entertaining origin-story, filled with impressive action sequences that highlight the new abilities that Garrison has acquired, including regeneration, super-strength, and other tech-based abilities such as connecting to systems wirelessly with his mind.
I will say, going into the film I knew nothing about the story; nor did I watch the trailer for it, which does let the cat out of the bag on what’s happening to Garrison. At the beginning of the film, the story starts out very cheesy, but you eventually understand why. Although this does explain some of the cliched moments at the beginning of the film, it still doesn’t forgive some of the rest that occur subsequently afterward. The story honestly doesn’t have much substance to it. While you can see the hell that Garrison is being put through each time he’s erased, unfortunately Vin Diesel simply doesn’t have the talent to convey that in an emotional way. While he admittedly is part of the biggest comic franchise in history, his one sentence dialogue hasn’t done him any favors in going back to carrying an entire film. Half the time I couldn’t understand him under the mumbling, and he turns the character into a mindless killing machine. To be fair, the lack of character development isn’t just confined to the main character, as it seems most of the characters in the film suffer from the same problem.
While the technology portion of the story is pretty cool, with all the different upgrades the different soldiers have received based on their injuries, they are basically eye candy to highlight the impressive, yet boring special effects. Dr. Harting has created this nano-technology that has brought someone back from the dead and prevents them from dying, yet he is basing the entire success/failure of being able to sell it over Garrison completing his kill missions. Why? And why doesn’t he just inject all of his team with this nano-technology to make them invincible like he is? The story just doesn’t make much sense no matter how you look at it.
Video
Sony has provided us with a digital code for this film, which includes Dolby Vision for those able to display and stream it. That Dolby Vision makes the film look fantastic, as there are a wide array of locations with rich, lifelike colors, brilliant brights and deep darks.
Special Features
No extras come with the digital code. Check out the physical releases for supplemental material.
Bloodshot definitely has some impressive action sequences, and sets itself up for multiple films, but based on its performance and reviews, it is unlikely we’ll ever seen another. Fans of this comic might be interested in seeing it come to life, and any fan of Vin Diesel, will find nothing different than any of his other films. If you’re only in the market for some mindless action, this might be what you’re looking for.
