Bloodshot is a film about a man who wakes up with no memory and a bulletproof body, and it spends nearly two hours proving that the best way to sell a premise that good is to treat it badly. The movie, starring Vin Diesel, wants to be a pulpy, dumb action flick, but it can’t decide if it wants to be funny, grim, or just loud. It ends up being all three at once, and none of them very well.
Trailer, via Sony Pictures Entertainment.
The Setup
Ray Garrison wakes up dead in a morgue, and then he doesn’t. He is resurrected by Dr. Emil Hartman, who implanted a microchip in his brain and turned him into a living weapon. Ray has no memories of his past life, only a vague sense of loss. The plot kicks into gear when a shadowy organization led by Dr. Michael Harrow shows up, steals the chip, and Ray goes on a rampage across Europe trying to get it back.
Diesel’s Problem
Vin Diesel plays Ray as a man who is constantly surprised by his own strength. That’s the joke, or at least the idea. The problem is that Diesel has spent decades playing characters who are constantly surprised by their own strength, and the audience knows the drill. There’s no nuance here. When Ray gets angry, he punches through walls. When he gets angrier, he punches through tanks. The film treats this as spectacle, but it reads as fatigue.
The Supporting Cast
Eiza González plays Dr. Tina Carrigan, a scientist who helps Ray understand his condition. She’s meant to be the heart of the movie, but her scenes are thin. She explains things to Ray that anyone watching the film could guess from context. Sam Heughan shows up as Dr. Harrow, the villain, and he’s fine. His character is a walking cliché, but Heughan sells the menace. However, the film’s real villain is its own pacing.
The Action
The action sequences are the film’s strongest asset. A car chase through a tunnel is genuinely thrilling, and a fight on a moving train is a highlight. The problem is that these moments are surrounded by stretches of dialogue that feel like they were recorded in a phone booth. The film is constantly stopping to explain its own rules, and it never lets the audience forget that it’s a comic book adaptation.
The Tone Problem
Bloodshot wants to be a dark, gritty reboot of a beloved property, but it can’t commit. It keeps dipping into jokes that don’t land, and then it pulls back into grim exposition that doesn’t stick either. The result is a film that feels tonally split at the seams. It’s a comedy that isn’t funny, and a thriller that isn’t tense.
The Microchip Question
The central mystery of the film is the microchip in Ray’s brain. It holds his memories, and retrieving it is supposed to unlock his past. But the film doesn’t really care about the answer. It’s a McGuffin, and the resolution is a letdown. After all the build-up, the reveal is underwhelming. It’s a shame, because the setup was promising.
A Schedule of the Film’s Low Points
| Scene | Length | Quality |
|---|---|---|
| Opening credits | ~5 minutes | Slow, unnecessary |
| Ray’s first fight | ~10 minutes | Overlong, repetitive |
| Explanation scene #1 | ~5 minutes | Pointless, confusing |
| Explanation scene #2 | ~5 minutes | More pointless, more confusing |
| Climax | ~10 minutes | Too short, anticlimactic |
“The film is a mess.”
That’s the honest takeaway. Bloodshot is a mess. It has moments of genuine excitement, but they’re buried under a mountain of bad writing and worse direction. The film is a reminder that even a strong premise can be ruined by poor execution.
Score: 4.4 out of 10.
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