Here’s my guess: some production jerks were trying to sell the “Fast & Furious Cartoon Hour” when one of them suddenly remembered what genuine art looked like and blurted out, “What if we made Memento into an action film?” and thus an idea born. For now, I’m not calling it a good idea or a bad idea, just an idea. It takes a fair amount of imagination to foresee Vin Diesel attacking the subtleties of a character who cannot make new memories; it takes less when you simply have him attacking and attacking and attacking.
I’m told Bloodshot
is a graphic novel, as in this film had genuine source material and wasn’t just a Frankensteinian step-brother of a modern classic. Here’s the thing – I have no idea what the comic book is like, but the film plays like somebody tried to clone Memento and failed. You’re going to tell me that the meaty role for Guy Pearce is just coincidence? Right.
Ray is a U.S. Marine with a talent for killing. This being a movie, bad guys take it personally when Ray destroys their hate nest and before long, Ray is captured along with his wife (?!) and both are murdered –thankfully– before torture is indulged. Well, hey, they killed the main character off before the credits. Guess we can go home. Oh, it’s COVID; we’re already home. In that case, I guess we’ll stay for the two hours of credits.
Oh, the movie didn’t actually end. Ray wakes up in a lab, alive and perfectly healthy. He has no memory of the trauma he’s endured. While he can’t remember this morning, Ray is suddenly Superman or Wolverine or, tell ya what, we’ll call him “Bloodshot” because graphic novelists invested precious little amount of energy in the naming of this abhorration. You see, inside this Diesel engine, there are millions of nanobots who can all-the-king’s-horses-and-all-the-king’s-men anytime Lumpy here gets a boo-boo. And for some reason, Bloodshot can now punch through stone.
The facility, run by Dr. Manny Pulation –actually, it’s Dr. Emil Harting (Pearce), but I like mine better—is an experimental army lab where they build bionic people. And they’re not just messing with Diesel mechanics; they’re 
also rewiring the Diesel CPU. This is a film in which you will ask, “What is reality?” And then you won’t care, because the film doesn’t, either.
Bloodshot has a terrible role for my wife’s favorite actor, Sam Heughan (“Outlander”), proving that one Sam does not necessarily a good film make. The problem is exactly as stated above: simply put, this is an intellectual film turned into a blood bath. It’s hard to care about anything in the movie because there are exactly three characters we’re supposed to like and one is a murder machine while the other two are extreme manipulators. You get the feeling watching this film that no matter who dies, you’re not gonna do a whole lot of mourning. Not to mention the fact that the mystery within the plot is given away before the halfway mark. Bloodshot has a Yang of intelligence, yet the film is dominated by the Vin of violence. A promising film wasted.
There once was a murder machine
With the healing power of Wolverine
Clear from attack plan
This guy ain’t no Jackman
He’s a cross between X-Man and Mr. Clean
Rated PG-13, 109 Minutes
Director: Dave Wilson
Writer: Jeff Wadlow and Eric Heisserer
Genre: Making a thought piece into a “lack of thought” piece
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Fans who want to see Vin Diesel branch out more from driving to punching
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Christopher Nolan, I imagine
