‘Bloodshot’ (2020) – A Non-Spoiler Review

Superheroes are getting an upgrade? Well, Doc, this upgrade has a few bugs to work out.

Based on the best-selling comic book of the same name, Bloodshot is about Ray Garrison (Vin Diesel), a soldier who is brought back to life by Dr. Emil Harting (Guy Pearce). Upon being brought back, Dr. Harting replaced Garrison’s blood with nanotechnology, equipping him with superpowers including regeneration and super strength. Now, Garrison must track down his enemies and take them down… but does he know who the enemy really is?

I decided to look at director Dave Wilson’s previous work on his IMDb page and I made the discovery that Bloodshot is basically his directorial debut (at least for a feature film). That makes a lot more sense of how this film turned out and that gives me hope for his future work. In case you haven’t caught on, I wasn’t a huge fan of Mr. Wilson’s overall direction for Bloodshot. Being fair to Wilson, I think most of the issue actually lies in the writing, however, he definitely could have adjusted a lot on his end that I feel would have improved upon the film significantly. For example, there’s a certain action scene that contains a lot of slow-motion. I like slow-motion and there were some pieces of this scene where it worked out very well. However, because he used so much, most of the scene came off very slow and boring. Of course, the score probably didn’t help either, as it was not even close to actually supporting the scene as it should have. However, if Wilson would’ve cut down on some of the slow-motion and worked with the composer to produce a more supporting score, I feel this scene would’ve been the best scene of the whole film! I can only imagine how Bloodshot as a whole would’ve turned out if he just made a few adjustments to each scene. To give a brighter note on Wilson’s work, his intent was obviously good and I see that. So, even though the execution fell flat, I think Wilson has a bright future.

Something I will admit was pretty well done in this film was the cinematography from Director of Photography Jacques Jouffret. Mr. Jouffret’s previous work includes The Purge, Mile 22, and Blumhouse’s Truth or Dare, which if I’m being honest, I have yet to see any of those films. But that doesn’t matter, what matters is Bloodshot, and I’d say this film is a pretty good first impression. Is every shot a cinematic piece of art? No, there are actually quite a few generic shots spread throughout, but that’s okay! There are plenty of beautiful, well-framed, and unique shots that provide a lot of eye candy when they need to. Furthermore, the CGI wasn’t a failure, either. Not everything is flawless, but the visual effects that could’ve been horrible and ruined the movie instantly were actually quite convincing and cool to look at it. Yes, I’m saying that I was convinced Vin Diesel was being regenerated by nanotechnology.

I kind of already touched on it previously, but I want to go into Steve Jablonsky’s score for Bloodshot. Mr. Jablonsky has done a lot of work, including Michael Bay’s Transformers, Peter Berg’s Lone Survivor and Deepwater Horizon, and so on. I personally love his work, however, he let me down this time around. Usually, his music is very unique and I fall in love with it on the spot. Sometimes it’s subtle, sometimes it’s profound, sometimes it sends chills down your spine, and so on. However, in Bloodshot, you barely notice there’s any music at all. I barely remember hearing any music, if I’m being honest. The most I remember is being utterly bored by the scene I was speaking of before (the one with too much slo-mo) because the score brought nothing that it should have brought. Even if all the slo-mo stayed, Jablonsky doing what he usually does should’ve bumped up the intensity a few notches because that is what the scene called for. I’m not mad, Mr. Jablonsky… I’m just disappointed. Granted, I haven’t listened to the score on its own yet, but I shouldn’t have to. It could be assumed that in the editing room things were changed and tracks were dropped or moved around, causing the full potential to be wiped away. But for now, I have to go with what I can confirm, and that is that Steve Jablonsky’s work, rather it was altered after the fact or simply dead on arrival, did not turn out how it usually does.

As I stated above, Bloodshot stars Vin Diesel and Guy Pearce as Ray Garrison and Dr. Emil Harting respectively. The rest of the main cast includes Eiza Gonzalez as KT, Sam Heughan as Jimmy Dalton, and Lamorne Morris as Wilfred Wigans. Vin Diesel and Eiza Gonzalez are the only ones I really know based on seeing their previous work, so let’s start with them. Diesel is basically playing the same character he usually plays, except this time around I think he tried being a little more friendly in a couple of the laid back scenes, rather than always being rough and serious, and that didn’t work out very well. Now that I think about it, he’s had lighter emotions in the past Fast and Furious films and he pulled those off better than he did in Bloodshot. I do, however, think there’s potential in his lighter moments, as long as he keeps practicing. In general, Vin Diesel was simply Vin Diesel. He didn’t do awful, but he could’ve done better. The real unfortunate disappointment comes from Eiza Gonzalez. I’ve seen a couple of her movies in the past and she is a talented actress, for sure. However, in Bloodshot her performance doesn’t land very well at all. Gonzalez’s whole performance seems very forced, almost to the point that she doesn’t want to be there. And I understand that there is a certain aspect to her character that calls for that specific attitude, it just feels more like Gonzalez is forcing herself to be on set that day. To keep from going on and on about acting, I’ll jump to the point in saying that Pearce and Heughan didn’t exactly do much better than anyone else. Pearce wasn’t awful, but he didn’t do good enough to stand out from the crowd and improve my overall thoughts on the acting. Heughan tried way too hard with the bad boy attitude, causing it to come off as trying to be cool and it ended up feeling a little awkward. To end on a high note, I did really enjoy Lamorne Morris as he was the most entertaining out of the bunch.

So, the actors failed at successfully bringing these characters to life, but were the characters at least written well? Yes and no, but mostly no. There are some positives to the characters in this film, mostly being that I found some relation to a couple of them and Wigans was pretty much my favorite. Other than that, the ideas behind the characters are the best part of them. First of all, Garrison was written in a pretty dry manner. There isn’t a whole lot of depth or uniqueness to him and even though the writers did give him some development, they ended up giving him a very overused arc, so it didn’t do much for me. I guess you could say I really wasn’t cheering for our hero very much and you do not want that to be the case in a superhero film. Speaking of which, you can’t have a good hero without a good villain… so, I guess we really didn’t have a good hero at all. The villain in Bloodshot really didn’t do much of anything for me. Did he oppose the hero? Sure. Was the situation between the hero and villain unique? Maybe a little, I guess? But, that’s all that is going for the villain as I didn’t feel intimidated at all by him and it helps to have a villain that’s at least a little intimidating. The chemistry between characters isn’t much better, either. Garrison and KT seem to have a little bit but that doesn’t last very long. I mean Garrison and his wife Gina don’t even feel like a real couple. They smile at each other and it’s implied that they love each other, but it doesn’t feel real to me.

The plot for Bloodshot is actually kind of cool. I even enjoyed the specific plot points of the film, but really the theory behind it all is the best part because this film was written horribly. The scenes, the dialogue, how the journey from beginning to end plays out, it’s all very sloppy and didn’t turn out as good as it could’ve. And the pacing? After watching Bloodshot and honestly not knowing the runtime, I thought it had to be over two-and-a-half hours long. When I checked IMDb to find my guess was an hour longer than the actual runtime, my jaw actually dropped. So, needless to say, the pacing is horrible in Bloodshot and most of the film is actually pretty boring. As an action/superhero film, Bloodshot doesn’t exactly perform well. As I said, I never really cheered for Bloodshot and even the action scenes left me unexcited and underwhelmed.

Overall, Bloodshot had the potential to at least be a decent guilty pleasure, but it even missed that mark. The truly sad thing is that it’s not hard to entertain me. I have a huge weak spot for action, especially involving people with enhanced abilities, and that is usually enough to make a movie a guilty pleasure at the minimum. But, because the actors fell pretty much flat, the writing was awful aside from the overall ideas, and the pacing was absolutely atrocious, this movie is drowning in disappointment.

So, I give Bloodshot a score of 2/10 for good cinematography, visual effects, and Wilfred Wigans. I mean, the trailer with the song Memories Are Made of This is better than the movie as a whole… AND IT TELLS YOU NINETY PERCENT OF WHAT HAPPENS! So go watch that.

Have you seen Bloodshot? Are you planning to skip it or give it a chance? Let me know in the comments and while you’re at it, consider giving The Cinema Spot a follow on Twitter (@TheCinemaSpot) and Instagram (@thecinemaspot_) for more movie news and reviews! Have a great day!