Bloodshot

Vin Diesel's career roster of roles has almost entirely relied on an action persona he has built over the past few decades. His unique grumble growl voice adds to his trademark of essentially becoming the type many would recognize: a buff no-nonsense brawler who finds himself mixed in predicaments and ends up either humiliating his prey his some kind of activity (racing for example) or leaves a body count audiences chose not to think about. This has escalated to the point where his current prime franchise Fast and Furious sees him as the leader of his crew who has a superpower of never losing a fight or coming out fine when he really shouldn't (basically a male Mary Sue). This brings us to another project that appeared to fit that bill, Bloodshot, which is based on that Valiant comics character. I'm unfamiliar with that comic book superhero and the marketing campaign hadn't given me much confidence in the film. It was released into theaters for a few weeks but was moved to an online release due to the COVID-19 outbreak. At the time of this review, I have decided to jump back into my catch-up of 2020 films that were digitally available for viewing. After watching it last night, I realized how much of a doomed feature this was based on its mediocre quality (regardless of a pandemic).

What's it about? The story follows a soldier being resurrected by a company from death and their manipulation of him into following their assassination plots. There was potential for this concept to work in an entertaining and cohesive manner, especially for an adaptation of a comic book character. There are very few scenes that give off a hint of tiny footsteps towards realizing the intrigue contained in this premise.

However, the way it's executed is a stale mediocre mess that feels like a mid-2000s Michael Bay (after Transformers 1) movie that rushes through its plot points. Any hint of subtle storytelling is lost when it heavily spoon-feeds the audience on what the villain plan is and makes the characters very one-dimensional. The terrible dialogue is exposition heavy and is abundant with obvious bad jokes that feel pulled from the 2000s. Any attempt at trying to establish an attachment to any character falls flat when the rushed pacing just zooms past them and their impact in the third act feels null. The action feels like the worst aspect of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with quick cut editing during fights and heavy reliance on CGI that feels like it's trying too hard to be cool. One "benefit" that comes out of the action is that it can be unintentionally funny with some of its antics in trying to be "macho" (almost guilty pleasure worthy).  

How are the actors? In regards to story importance, the actor to focus on is Vin Diesel. Because of the script limitations, Vin isn't given a main hero role that feels distinct from his standard past ones. Instead the directing he's given from a first time director end up making him very stale (any attempts at emotions is just him yelling). Honorable mention goes to Lamorne Morris for feeling like he made the most out of his role (with a less cringe execution of humor). Dishonorable mentions goes to Eiza Gonzalez and Siddarth Dhananjay with the former being one of the weakest performances (as well as being primarily used for Michael Bay-esque slow motion model walks a few times) while the latter is miscast as a tech expert who has the worst jokes to work with.

Overall Consensus: Bloodshot wastes its potential in a stale, predictable, and unentertaining story with weak one-dimensional characters, terrible writing, and boring action that almost becomes guilty pleasure material. ⭑⭑1/4* Runtime: 1 hour 43 minutes PG-13

*: If the pandemic didn't occur, the viewing recommendation I would give Bloodshot is 💻

Reasons to watch it: You are a fan of the aforementioned actors. You have read the comic book series that's being adapted and want to see how it compares. You are curious about mindless features that can become unintentionally funny from how messy it is. 

Reasons to avoid it: You aren't a fan of the aforementioned actors. You have read the comic book series that's being adapted but don't want to see how it compares. You dislike adaptations that don't reach their potential.