Bloodshot

In Dave Wilson’s tepid, seen-it-all-before Bloodshot, Vin Diesel (Fast & Furious franchise, Guardians of the Galaxy) plays Ray, a solider brought back to life with cutting-edge technology by one Dr Emil Harting (Guy Pearce; Iron Man 3, Alien:Covenant). Not only is he re-animated, Ray is gifted with super strength and blazingly fast healing abilities. The crippling flashbacks of the torture and murder of his wife he could do without though. So first on his agenda is to seek vengeance for the untimely death of his beloved. But there’s a catch to being reborn, one that will have Ray questioning who he can trust – including himself.

There’s not a speck of originality to be found in Bloodshot. Taking cues from far superior genre entries such as Robocop, Edge of Tomorrow, The Terminator and even Spiderman 2, Bloodshot forgets to forge an identity of its own. Not even a Diesel injection, with Vin being his usual gruff talking, white-vest wearing self, raises the film above tedious mediocrity. A spirited performance by Eiza González (Alita: Battle Angel, F&F Presents: Hobbs & Shaw) as fellow enhanced soldier KT is easily the film’s greatest quality and she’s arguably the real star here while Guy Pearce is sufficiently shady as the seemingly well-meaning Dr Harting. Attempts at a comedy are as funny as a football to the groin, with Lamorne Morris as hacker extraordinaire Wilfred having to crack most of the cringe-inducing gags.

Its action sequences are of the rapid-cut variety and, unsurprisingly for its 12A/PG-13 rating, it’s a relatively bloodless affair. Not that it would’ve made a shred of difference in the low entertainment value of the feature, but one sequence substitutes the red stuff by shooting the whole thing through a harsh red filter and fighting each other covered in what appears to be many kilograms of flour. It all wraps up with a CGI heavy finale pulled straight from a videogame cutscene to certify Bloodshot as another misfire for Sony’s attempts to adapt comic books to the big screen.

Bloodshot is now available to watch through Google Play, YouTube, Amazon Prime & iTunes