Bullet Points: Bloodshot
People fall into one of two categories: those who like Vin Diesel, and those who do not like Vin Diesel. There aren’t that many people in the middle. His films are rarely mentioned around awards season and if you take away his Fast films, he’s barely made anything most would call “good”. I, too, am in one of those categories and it isn’t because of all the times he’s been filmed in the cab of a car pretending to drive. I like Vin because he tends to take film projects that he likes. He’s a nerd, you see, and I would rather watch Vin Diesel do something that makes him happy than to watch another John Cusack direct to video action turd.
Synopsis: Ray Garrison (Vin Diesel), an elite soldier who was killed in battle, is brought back to life by an advanced technology that gives him the ability of super human strength and fast healing. With his new abilities, he goes after the man who killed his wife, or at least, who he believes killed his wife. He soon comes to learn that not everything he learns can be trusted. The true question is: Can he even trust himself?
- Meet Ray: Vin Diesel plays our new friend Ray Garrison. He’s a special ops badass (sure are a lot of them) who is just returning home from his latest successful mission in Africa. He kinda plays by his own rules but he gets the job done and he “always comes home”. We just so happen to see Vin landing at the airport with his comrades in arms and his lovely wife is there waiting for him. That was awful nice of her….
- Vin being Vin: Ray and his beloved Gina fly away to Italy to vacation and get their sex juices all over their hotel room. Vin is the only military guy who still wears a wife beater under his fatigues ans is clearly too old to be doing what he’s doing. No matter, their vacation is cut short when they get abducted and terrorist Tony Kebbell kills Gina in front of Ray. Boy, nothing pisses him off more than watching his wife die. Too bad he gets offed right after.
- An army of cripples: Okay, so you already know that Vin’s character is brought back to life as a superhero who looks like that guy from Powder. Ray’s blood is replaced and now he has a bunch of nanites in his system. They are able to heal him and give him strength but really, who cares? Let’s talk about the rest of the crew at the organization. I’m sure there is no chance that they’ll have to fight later…One guy has a fake legs that are pretty sweet and the other has crazy robot eyes. Then there is Eiza Gonzalez’s character, KT. She has some chest deal that lets her breathe but can totally be controlled by Guy Pearce’s fake arm. Yeah, it sounds a bit weird but just know that 60 mins from now Vin will probably be killing them all.
- Flour power: Ray gets his first mission even without getting his call sign, Bloodshot. Bummer! He tracks down Kebbell’s character and unleashes a serious ass-whooping on him and his contracted bodyguards. He makes the mistake of calling his pal right before and Ray is essentially guaranteed another victim right away. The action scene was pretty awesome, too. It ends in a tunnel in which a massive flour truck has crashed and it makes for a unique place for a gun battle.
- Oh, I see what is going on here: Most of you will probably catch on pretty quickly with this one. The shadowy organization run by Guy Pearce isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. They’re super evil and using Ray to kill all sorts of people that did nothing to him. Hell, his wife isn’t even dead! Crazy thing is, I’m not really sure how Ray died in the first place but I guess it doesn’t matter for the purposes of this story. All you need to know is that once Ray realizes he’s being duped, he’s even more pissed off than he was before.
- On the run: Normally it would be hard to find good help but Ray immediately runs into Wigans (Lamorne Morris) and totally gets the hookup about everything. Morris is the comic relief in the film and a welcome addition to the story. He’s probably my favorite character but that’s only because Eiza Gonzalez never sheds her top. The three of them team up against the rest and we’ve officially run out of ideas for these movies.
- Bad Guy: Superhero movies should be fun but not knowing what is going to happen is even more fun. Guy Pearce just plays the same bad guy that is in every Iron Man movie. Pretty much the same character he played in Iron Man 3, actually! Ray does get to finally duke it out with the other dudes who have modifications and while it’s a bit too ridiculous it is one of the better scenes in the second half of the film.
The Verdict: Bloodshot is both fun and frustrating at the same time. The action and visuals are cool and I’ve always found Vin Diesel fun to watch since he normally nerds out and does the movies that he wants to see. The problem with Bloodshot is that nothing that happens is a surprise. Hell, I don’t think I even watched a trailer for the film and I still had no problem figuring out the next move about 15 minutes in. Plenty of the characters are fun to see, namely Wigans, but the film peaks early on with its action and doesn’t have a villain hard enough to bring it back when the movie finally works its way to a conclusion. Was I surprised that the good guys won? Did I think that Eiza Gonzalez was gonna jump ship? It’s a film full of cliches but at least it’s an entertaining film with cliches. I’d still rather watch this than 80% of the MCU that can barely tell a coherent character story. Superhero movies live and die on the overwhelming charm of the hero or the devilishly awesome evil of the villain. This one doesn’t have either of those things in spades but it has enough for me to enjoy it.
