Bloodshot (Review)

Bloodshot Brings an Underwhelming New Comic Hero to the Big Screen

Let me start by saying that I’ve never read a Bloodshot comic in my life. So, I have no way of speaking to how accurate of an adaptation the new film is. However, I can say that Bloodshot revealed a serious issue with so many comic book movies being made these days. Because of how great so many MCU and DCEU movies have been lately, it means that simply “okay” is no longer acceptable. If you want to compete, you better bring your A-game and Bloodshot simply doesn’t. Sure, there’s a certain amount of mindless fun to be had with some of the action sequences and Vin Diesel is always entertaining even in his worst movies. I can’t help feeling like Bloodshot was ill-prepared to make a lasting impression in the biggest and most competitive genre of films in theaters today.

Bloodshot brings the titular cyberpunk comic character to the big screen. A former Special Forces operator named Rick Garrison (Vin Diesel) gets himself killed and is brought back by a tech firm devoted to helping make America’s soldiers the most effective killing machines on the planet. He’s turned into a cyborg after being pumped full of nanites that give him increased strength, speed, and a healing factor that lets him shrug off bullets and explosions. Back in the land of the living, Rick suffers from memory loss at first but soon remembers that his wife was killed right before he was by a sadistic terrorist. With his newfound abilities, he sets out to get even (and boy does he). It turns out that his memories have been manipulated by the company that brought him back to life so that he would take out any threats to them. With the truth revealed, Garrison has to find a way to fight back against them before they can wipe his memories again.

There are certainly a number of cool action scenes in Bloodshot. Director Dave Wilson applies a comic book aesthetic in his approach to the film, but that proves to be very hit or miss. For example, the scene where Bloodshot takes on a group of mercenaries in a tunnel after crashing a truck full of flour into their convey is pretty cool with the low visibility and red glow from emergency flares. The way Diesel manages to appear and disappear at will into the smoke makes it a pretty exciting scene overall. However, the scene where Eiza González does a martial arts kata underwater is almost laughable simply because it tries so desperately to make it seem cool when it’s just dumb. I get that her character is supposed to be a Navy swimmer but she, like almost all the characters in the movie, feel like she was designed by a 12-year-old boy trying to pad the hell out of her resume to make her “super cool.” While González has the chops to make her character seem pretty badass at times, Bloodshot‘s real issue is when it comes to the villains.

To be fair, most comic book movies tend to have villain problems in their first outing. The MCU, for example, has a nasty habit of pitting their heroes against anti-versions of themselves in their origin films. Bloodshot doesn’t quite go this far, but the bad guys in it don’t have the depth to them to make them truly menacing. Don’t get me wrong, I love watching Guy Pearce work and he manages to sell the ruthlessness and genius of Dr. Emil Harting. Despite this, he’s far from a physical threat to such an OP character like Bloodshot (the guy is pretty much immortal). Harting has goons for that (Sam Heughan and Alex Hernandez), but even they never seem like they would stand much of a chance from the getgo. I’ve always insisted that a hero is only as good as their villain, and Bloodshot has a serious villain problem. Heughan’s Jimmy Dalton is an insufferable prick and we never find out why. There’s no motivation for him beside the fact that he’s a “bad guy.” Bloodshots lack of focus on the bad guys means that its hero never has an insurmountable obstacle for him to overcome and that makes it… Well, a bit boring.  

With characters like Wolverine and Deadpool being very similar in concept to Bloodshot (former soldiers with healing abilities), the film already had its work cut out for in order to really make itself stand out. Being Valiant comic’s first big-screen movie, I would have thought that there would have been more care in how to approach it. I don’t know much about the character from the actual comics, but I do know that comic book movies need an edge in order to stand out these days. Seeing as how the character is an anti-hero like the two I mentioned, it would have made sense to me for Bloodshot to go for the R-rating and make a huge splash with some blood-soaked action scenes with a splash of adult situations (and profanity). In trying to reach a larger audience, the film holds back from letting the beast out of the cage and never manages to be especially thrilling.  

Bloodshot is very hit or miss. Sure, Vin Diesel is good, but the character is hardly one of his more memorable ones (looking at you, Riddick). The action sequences are cool, but never feel meaningful because of just how overpowered the character is. Pearce turns in a solid performance, but he’s never quite villainous and his flunkies are lackluster at best. All told, Bloodshot is an alright action movie but drowns in a sea of superior comic book movies we’ve seen over the years. There’s no doubt that Valiant was trying to make a splash with the film, but ended up doing a belly flop instead. So, is it worth seeing in theaters? Well, with coronavirus pushing back the release date of pretty much every other movie, you might not have any choice. In that case, it’s not so bad as to be unwatchable. It just never achieves its aspirations to be a cool and exciting comic book movie.