Bloodshot (2020) Film Review

Introduction To Bloodshot

With the behemoth that is Marvel Studios dominating the ‘Super Hero’ genre and DC Studios just about picking up the scraps, is there room for a new entrant into this world?
Not content with holding onto the rights for Spiderman, Sony Studios, have bagged the distribution rights for the Valiant Comics Universe with the first origin story being ‘Bloodshot’.

Bloodshot is Directed by David S. F. Wilson and this marks Wilson’s first big screen movie as a Director. Bloodshot stars Vin Diesel, Eiza González, Sam Heughan, Toby Kebbell, and Guy Pearce.

Sony Pictures released Bloodshot in March 2020, amidst the backdrop of a Pandemic. Once the Cinemas had been forced to close Sony made the film available digitally on-demand and on DVD

The Script/Screenplay

The script and screenplay to Bloodshot was written by Jeff Wadlow and Eric Heisserer with the story created story by Wadlow. Bloodshot is billed as an action Sci-Fi movie. The premise of Bloodshot is nothing new or revolutionary. If you have ever seen Paul Verhoeven’s ‘Robocop’, Roland Emmerich’s ‘ Universal Solder’ or Doug Liman’s ‘Live Die Repeat’ you will recognise the plot.

*** Caution Spoilers***

Bloodshot centres around generic U.S. Marine, ‘Ray Garrison (Vin Diesel)’. We first see Garrison saving a hostage in a scene lifted straight out of ‘Call Of Duty’. After the opening events, we are transported to Italy where we see Garrison on holiday with his wife. Everything looks lovely, and is filmed in a lovely golden hue, until they are both kidnapped and taken hostage. At this point we get introduced to ‘Martin Axe (Toby Kebbell) ‘. Not only has Axe got a cool name for a movie mercenary, he makes quite the entrance to the sounds of Talking Heads – Psycho Killer. At this point you would think that we were being treated to a fun stylised film, something along the line of Guardians Of The Galaxy. Sadly not, any notion of using needle drops to support the events on screen is dispelled as we only have Steve Jablonsky’s score to listen to for the rest of the movie.

As predicted by Psycho Killer, Axe kills Garrison. The military seemingly hand over Garrison’s body to billionaire megalomaniac Dr.Emil Harting (Guy Pearce). We then see Garrison waking up at Dr. Harting’s facility, having been turned into a human cyborg with built in WiFI! Garrison is given a tour of the facility, introduced to Human Fish ‘KT (Eiza González ), and told that his blood is now basically made up of nanites that will repair ANY damage to his body, effectively creating a superhero. It becomes apparent that Garrison has no memory and also does not seem the slightest bit phased by being brought back from the dead. During a 1 on 1 conversation with KT, ‘Psycho Killer’ is heard playing in the background. This triggers a flashback for Garrison and the fragments of a memory form in his mind. This is just enough detail to send Garrison on a personal revenge mission. Having simply driven out of the secure facility (with everyone watching) Garrison uses his WiFi connection to search every database and satellite know to man to track down his killer (Axe). Having located Axe, Garrison kills him and all his henchmen and returns to base only to be put to sleep, reprogrammed, reloaded with nanites and sent out again,. It is apparent that this process has been performed several times before and that mysteriously, nearly all of Dr. Harting’s previous colleagues have all died! I wonder why? At this point KT grows a conscience argues with Dr. Harting and sets out to help Garrison, coercing rival computer programmer Wilfred Wigans in the process. Wigans finds a way to break Garrisons connection to Dr. Harting and his lab. With Wigan’s help Garrison regains all of his memories just in time for the final third of the movie. This provides an opportunity to watch Garrison rampage about fake London, return to Dr. Harting’s facility, deal with run of the mill augmented henchmen and enacting his revenge. All in time to literately drive off into the sunset – movie cliche bingo anyone?

Standout Casting

Vin Diesel

Dr Emil Harting : Vengeance is what makes a man like you exceptional.

Ray Garrison : You know nothing about men like me!

Vin Diesel Plays Ray Garrison / Bloodshot. Bloodshot was supposed to be a Jared Leto movie, but for some reason production switched to Vin Diesel taking the lead role. Its been a while since we have seen Vin Diesel in a live action movie outside of the Fast franchise, (not counting his portrayal of the word Grooooooot). The good news is that Bloodshot perfectly fits Vin Diesels range of acting ability. We have softly spoken Vin talking about family, we have hardcore Vin punching concreate beams and we have angry Vin – shouting, looking moody and running. Sometimes we are treated to all three at once! To be fair though, he does look like he is having a lot of fun playing Bloodshot.

Guy Pearce

Emil Harting : But you don’t need a history to have a future.

Guy Pearce Plays Dr. Emil Harting. Guy Pearce has forged a career as a character actor with recent credits including Spinning Man, Mary Queen of Scots and Domino. Bloodshot gives Pearce the task of bringing Dr. Emil Harting to life. Sadly the script doesn’t give Pearce a lot to do other than walk around offices shouting at monitors. So predictable is the script it becomes a very Lex Luther type performance. Pearce shows his skill by treading the line between obsessive billionaire and single minded maniac and hitting the character’s tone spot on. We really should see more of Pearce in big budget movies – Marvel if your reading (prob not, but hey)

Eiza González

KT : Sorry, sometimes you just gotta rip off the Band-Aid, it helps to get through the pain of it quicker.

Eiza González as KT. previous credits including Baby Driver, Alita: Battle Angel, Hobbs & Shaw. González’s popularity has been steadily rising. Here she plays KT, a former Navy diver who has had some sort of accident in the past. This has resulted in in Dr. Harting providing KT the ability to breath under water, courtesy of a throat augmentation that I am convinced is forgotten about for the rest of the film. KT’s ability is referred to only once in the film and seems to serve no real purpose (presumably set up for sequel use). Unlike Guy Peace, González gets a fair amount to do and once again proves she is equally at home with an action set peace as she is with more sensitive scenes. The on screen chemistry with Vin Diesel is believable.

Sound/Music/Score

The Score:

Bloodshot is scored by Steve Jablonsky (Transformers, Ender’s Game, The Island, Lone Survivor, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, Deepwater Horizon). Once the score starts there is no doubting this is a Jablonsky score. The sounds of a ticking drum, nestled over the top of an orchestra occasionally broken up with synth style boom, only for the pace to then ramp up with violins literally strumming chords. At times we hear previous works from Jablonsky influencing Bloodshot’s score. Listen to tracks from the Transformers or Skyscraper scores and you get to recognise Bloodshot’s Influences. I wonder if either one was used as a temp score during production? The score suits the film well and does not seem out of place. It would be nice to hear Jablonsky pull something totally different out the bag.

The Sound:

I listened using a Yamaha AVR and Gallo Acoustic A’Diva speakers package.

Sony have presented Bloodshot in the ATMOS format. Dialogue is clear from the centre speaker and the soundtrack makes good use of the other directional channels. The overhead channels are used well not only on key scenes but to ad ambience throughout the film. I did have to play volumes tennis a little during action scenes, (this is unusual for an ATMOS track). Jablonsky’s score integrates well and is provided a spatial sound to air in.
Overall the sound quality on Bloodshot is fantastic.

Visual Effects

While there is no doubt that Dave Wilson is a talented visual effects supervisor (check out his list of previous productions), his directorial attention to detail needs a fair amount of work.

The most Inexplicable parts of the film centers around two key set pieces. The first is a tunnel scene. To get to his target Garrison crashes a truck full of flour. Whilst this results is some excellently produced footage of Garrison dispatching enemies through seas of flour powder it raises one big question. [wiki title=”Dust explosion”]Why didn’t the dust explode?[/wiki] . The second Inexplicable plot point is a scene supposedly set in London. The buildings do not look British, the cars all have foreign plates, a police car has the wrong markings for UK, Police officers wear the wrong uniform and seemingly are sitting in the car with a gun. We all know that English police have specific firearms vehicles and they have guns safely locked in the boot. You would have thought that someone with Wilson’s VFX experience would sorted these issues out in pre production or post

At one point Bloodshot was nominated for an Oscar shortlist for best VFX. This is more disbelieving than the onscreen action!

Video Quality

I watched Bloodshot using a Panasonic DP-UB820EB-K Ultra HD Blu-Ray Player – Black and downscaled to HD1080p using an Epson TW5650

The disc is presented as native 3840 x 2160p resolution image and and is encoded using the HEVC (H.265) codec for HDR10. Wide Colour Gamut (WCG), High Dynamic Range, and 10bit colour depth are also present.

I have to say the image is stunning, it really pops. Vibrant colour saturation and incredibly sharp picture The tunnel scene in particular has a gorgeous red hue defiantly helped by the 10bit colour depth. The CGI used in this movie is fantastic. At one point Bloodshot gets most of his face blasted off and the level of detail in how the nanites repair his face is both brilliant and gruesome at the same time. I would say the CGI outshines anything DC has created and is on par with Sony’s latest Spiderman movies. That’s some achievement given the movies modest production budget. It’s apparent that visual effects guru Dave Wilson has helmed this movie.

Bloodshot : Overall Thoughts

After 2020 and 2021 getting off to a rough start, Bloodshot is a welcome distraction. Go into the movie suspending disbelief, laugh out load at the gaffs and sit back and enjoy Vin Diesel doing Vin Diesel type stuff.

The Silver Hedgehog Rating: 4 'Recommended'

The Script / Screenplay
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Casting

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Music / Score

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Visual Effects and Costumes

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Video Quality

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Words Garry
Editor JJ
Images The Movie Database

Review Extras

Why Bloodshot

Bloodshot Bombed

Directed by Dave Wilson (as David S.F. Wilson)

Writing Credits
Jeff Wadlow (screenplay) and
Eric Heisserer (screenplay)
Jeff Wadlow (story)
Kevin VanHook (Valiant comic book) and
Don Perlin (Valiant comic book) and
Bob Layton (Valiant comic book)

Cast (in credits order)

Vin Diesel … Bloodshot
Eiza González … KT (as Eiza Gonzalez)
Sam Heughan … Jimmy Dalton
Toby Kebbell … Martin Axe
Talulah Riley … Gina Garrison
Lamorne Morris … Wilfred Wigans
Guy Pearce … Dr. Emil Harting
Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson … Nick Baris
Alex Hernandez … Tibbs
Siddharth Dhananjay … Eric
Tamer Burjaq … Mombasa Gunman
Clyde Berning … Mombasa Hostage
David Dukas … Merc Driver
Charlie Bouguenon … Merc Leader
Tyrel Meyer … Merc
Frans Steyn … Guard
David Davadoss … Guard
Alex Anlos … Baris Merc
Nic Rasenti … Guard
Ryan Michael Sin … Ex-RST Employee
Michael Kirch … Ex-RST Employee
Ryan Kruger … Ex-RST Employee
Austin Rose … Ex-RST Employee
Gary Naidoo … Ex-RST Employee
Hilton Sun … Ex-RST Employee
Tsogt Bayasgalan … Ex-RST Employee (as Tsogt Baysgalan)
Donovan Goliath … Police Officer #1
Freyja Stern … Gina’s Daughter
Keeno Lee Hector … RST Tech (as Kenoo-Lee Hector)
Jeremy Boado … RST Tech (as Jeremy Jess Boado)
Maarten Römer … RST Tech
Shelani Van Niekerk … RST Tech
Jason Goliath … Police Officer #2
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Patrick Kerton … Truck Driver (uncredited)
Emmanuel Manzanares … Baris Merc (uncredited)
Produced by
Matthew Antoun executive producer (as Matt Antoun)
Jeffrey Chan executive producer
Vin Diesel producer (produced by)
Cheryl Eatock line producer
Maurice Fadida executive producer
Louis G. Friedman executive producer
Jonathan Gray executive producer
Genevieve Hofmeyr production executive: Moonlighting Films
Toby Jaffe producer (produced by) (p.g.a.)
Jason Kothari executive producer
Rita LeBlanc executive producer
Steve Matzkin executive producer
Dan Mintz executive producer
Neal H. Moritz producer (produced by) (p.g.a.)
Buddy Patrick executive producer
Matthew Rhodes executive producer
Marvin Saven production executive: Moonlighting Films
Sarah Schroeder-Matzkin executive producer
Dinesh Shamdasani producer (produced by) (p.g.a.)
Mark Strome executive producer
Matthew Vaughn executive producer
Dione Wood co-producer
Dong Yu executive producer (as Yu Dong)
Music by Steve Jablonsky
Cinematography by Jacques Jouffret
director of photography
Jim May

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