I’ve been getting into comic books again lately, and even though Bloodshot is not a movie that appealed to me on its release, since it’s based on a graphic novel, I thought, ‘why not?’
Directed by David S. F. Wilson, Bloodshot sees Marine soldier Ray Garrison (Vin Diesel) get murdered by Martin Axe (Toby Kebbell), and revived by Dr. Emil Harting (Guy Pearce) using nanotech technology to replace his bloodstream. The augmentation allows Ray to heal really fast and gives him superstrength. Dr. Harting wants Ray to stay with him, and a group of other soldiers he has put back together, to study his achievement, but Ray has ‘unfinished business’, going rogue to hunt down his killer. That’s the first forty minutes of this movie at least – the remaining minutes explain how everything may not be as it seems.
I am always excited for an Australian villain in an action movie. Did you know that James Bond has never been to Australia? Not once. We could front an evil corporation hellbent on world domination too, you know. Apart from Mission Impossible II, which is set in Australia, and a small snippet of the Opera House getting ripped up in X-Men: Apocalypse, I feel we get a bum-steer on the world-stage when it comes to action movies. The only content that constantly refers to us as pesky troublemakers comes from New Zealand, and that’s just sibling rivalry. It’s a compliment, I know; we are the larrikins of the world. Toby Kebbell’s villain here, is Australian though, putting on a passable Australian accent and having fun whilst terrorising Ray and his wife, Gina (Talulah Riley) – in sandals and socks, no less; heaven forbid.
There are a few small things to like about this movie, but Bloodshot tone and content is hardly remarkable. I was intrigued by the technical augmentations of the soldiers, and enjoyed seeing them in action. The tech is really cool; one of the soldiers sees using cameras wired to his brain, and another can attach a second set of arms to his spinal-cord like Dr. Octopus in Spider-Man. KT (Eiza Gonzalez) can hold her breath underwater for a really long time because she has a hole to store air through her chest. Even seeing how Ray’s nanobots put him back together near the end shows why he would make a great visually-sensational superhero. Since I haven’t seen many of the Fast & Furious movies, I rarely get a look at Vin Diesel – he’s got a commanding voice to die for, doesn’t he? It seems Ray is a blokey bloke; he trains his body and fulfils a sense of innate duty to his country and the people he loves. I think it’s fair to say Diesel doesn’t have as much charisma as the other tough guys in his camp – Dwayne Johnson, John Cena, Jason Statham; at least not in this movie anyway. Personally, I like a bit of emotional depth, and I reckon there’s more personality in an Arnold Schwarzenegger T-800 than there is in this resurrected killing machine. When the movie tries to go for something deep – choosing your own path, destiny – it’s almost at a burden to the movie, that has more fun bashing and crashing. In the end, those themes have just been done so much better before.
I guess I can say, I appreciated the second layer of the movie, which sort’ve negates any cliché story telling in the first act as ‘part of the program.’ There’s some small meta breakdown of action heroes, but mostly, it’s just like Jake Gyllenhaal’s Mysterio relaying how cleverly he pulled off the ruse in Spider-Man: Far From Home. The trouble is, when its revealed that Ray is within a regimented program, it means we don’t really know who he is anymore; who he was before and who he would be now if he had the choice. It makes it hard to root for him. It’s like – remember seeing Weapon X break out of the facility in X-Men: Apocalypse? It’s like having to care about that guy if you had no prior knowledge of Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine. The revelations into Wolverine’s past in X2, and the animal Ryker is telling him that he is, is a struggle against, and conflicting to, what Wolverine has already established himself to be to an audience in the first, and a half, X-Men movies. Why is Ray so pissed at what Dr. Harting has done to him? Maybe he did die and the nanobots have given him a second chance at life. His wife has left him, so it’s not like what he remembers was his real life anyway. It sucks Ray is being used as a weapon without free will, but rebel against that a little before you decide it’s time to kill your rich benefactor… Am I missing the point?
I also can’t get my head around how the other soldiers feel about the program they’re in. As far as I can recall, the overall goal of Dr. Harting and his organisation is to sell Ray’s technology and make a lot of money, and the others know that, because they are part of the deception. I found it typical that KT starts to object to using Ray as a killing machine just as we enter the story, even though supposedly, Ray has killed many more people before now. He’s not even killing bad people, but rivals to this tech company. Why is the guy with the Doc-Ock-arms so eager to break down this prototype in the form of Vin Diesel? Is he not getting a cut of the billions they’re going to make off him? Is he jealous that he was overlooked for the nano-technology himself? – I could buy that if the movie was selling it to me. Everywhere you look, motivations are missing. I assume the other soldiers are grateful for their life-changing augmentations, and that’s why they help the man who has made it possible. There’s possibly a great story here, about scientists superseding the boots-on-the-ground soldiers, but Bloodshot hasn’t put it all together to be appealing. I don’t even know if Dr. Harting is as evil has the movie might like us to believe; horribly selfish, and a murderer that should be stopped, but there’s something left to be desired in the exploration of his scheme.
David S. F. Wilson has clearly gone to the Michael Bay school of slow-motion close-ups and lens flares. The colour grading and overall sense of machoism is uncanny too. I’m not surprised that I’m looking into this movie and finding holes, but I know the sort’ve of guy this movie will appeal to – we’ve all met him – and I don’t begrudge this type of simple production existing. If Bloodshot had come out in 2003, it might’ve been a big hit, but comic book adaptations have moved so far beyond what Bloodshot is offering. I can always go back over Netflix’s The Punisher if I want to see the inner machinations of revenge and despair done to a tee. There are some interest ideas for characters here, but I not enjoy Bloodshot. I hope the book is better.
2.0
Leave a Reply