Review of the movie “Bloodshot.” Black Hole of Despondency – review

The nineties were a unique time for the comic book industry. Marvel and DC lost their former influence, and independent publishers, as a rule founded by immigrants from the same Big Two, quickly flooded the market. Some of these companies, for example, Image or Dark Horse, have survived to this day, while others have been supplanted or absorbed. But the publisher Valiant Comics suffered a different fate: in the 90s it launched several episodes and was bent, but in 2012 it suddenly resurrected and even made a lot of noise among comic book readers. Valiant decided to create its own full-fledged universe, with crossovers and global events, just like Marvel or DC. It turned out to be a fairly large and well-developed world, but instead of the battered Batmen and Hulks there are other, largely unique characters. Only here on the big screen we will not see them soon, because the first adaptation of Valiant comics turned out to be at least mediocre.

Ray Harrison is a brutal warrior who, as befits an action hero, shoots first, and then asks questions. Bad guys die, good guys stay alive, and a beautiful wife awaits at home – in general, everything is perfect. Until then, until some sort of villains kidnap Harrison and kill his wife right before his eyes. After the turn comes to Ray, but for him death does not become the ending. The veteran is revived in a secret laboratory and reported that he has become an invulnerable super-soldier. Having mastered the new status, Harrison goes to avenge his beloved, and then …

Then follows the main, or rather the only plot twist of the film. Only now, the creators revealed it in the first trailer. However, anyone who reads the comic book already knows what it is, and those who are not familiar with the original source will guess everything in the first third themselves – even a minimum of observation is enough. After all Bloodshot – Another guest from the past. It’s like a lost action movie from the beginning of the 2000s, where Vin Diesel starred in between “Three X” and The Chronicles of Riddick. But don’t think that the “Bloodshot” is on a par with them – oh no. He has much more to do with any Elektroy. You can easily pass for this film for two hours, and after a while you accidentally review it, thinking that you have not seen it yet – it is so bland and not memorable.

Guess how many times during the movie, Bloodshot appears in his canonical appearance, lit up on the poster and in the trailers? That’s right – one

It is difficult to single out one specific problem, but most of all other components, perhaps, the script is lame. Not the plot, I emphasize, namely the script. After all, the “Bullshot” is surely someone will defend from a position of nostalgia. Say, this is an old-school fantastic action movie in the spirit of Universal Soldier and Robocop – there the stories are also simple, but no one complained. Yes, the story can be arbitrarily straightforward – it is important how it is presented, how the characters are revealed, and what they say to each other. In the same Robocop by Paul Verhoeven, there was a place for the transformation of the hero from the car back to man, and for the whip satire, and the phrases that are quoted thirty years later. There is nothing in the Bloodshot except the exposition. Each character of the plot, which is more or less significant, will be spoken out loud by some of the characters, around which most of the dialogues are built. And alright, when in Alite They try to tell us about the structure of an unfamiliar world in the shortest possible time, but in Chewshot this chewing is not justified by anything other than the authors’ desire to somehow score timekeeping. Well, or they just think that the audience has finally degraded.

When the characters do not explain everything that the viewer already understood, they exchange pathetic phrases about duty, freedom of choice and other high matters. Perhaps this should create the illusion that they have characters and motivation, but in the end – neither one nor the other. With Harrison, who, by the way, is never called the Bladshot, everything is clear. He is a man-cannonball – where they launched, there and rushing. But the rest of the characters develop in the same way, or rather, they move by some inertia of unknown origin. There is a soldier girl Katie who sympathizes and helps Ray, because … well … she is kind … probably. And there is a former Marine Dalton, who Ray hates, because he supposedly has to mess around with Harrison and clean up after him. But we will never see this – the justification of the conflict is limited to a couple of phrases. Well, the main antagonist is again the evil Elon Musk, just like in Venome, and he habitually justifies his crimes with a philosophy in the spirit of “humanity has gone astray.”

Acting doesn’t really pull it all. There has been little demand for Vin Diesel for twenty years now – it is enough for him to frown severely and decisively throw scoundrels. But sometimes the hero has to grieve or delve into himself, and then the main star rests on the ceiling of his abilities, and the viewer experiences a slight feeling of awkwardness. In principle, of the entire cast, only Guy Pearce depicts something bright on the screen, despite the fact that he has almost nothing to work with. Although the caste still has a terrific Toby Kebbell, the creators spend his talent on an episodic and not-so-needed character. But a lot of timing is reserved for Sam Huan, who plays the same Dalton Marine, and this is something incredible. Most of all, he recalls the recent Anton Pampushny Coma – he portrayed the same hysterical, annoying and devoid of charisma bull. Yes, they are even outwardly somewhat similar.

But the failure of the actors is, as a rule, the fault of the director, and the “Bloodshot” is primarily concerned. The picture was set by the debutant Dave Wilson, who had never worked with live artists before, but was engaged in game cinematics, for example, for the first The division or second The force unleashed. And this is felt, because individual scenes in the film just resemble story trailers of some shooter. Or rather, one scene – a shootout in the tunnel. It is dynamic, sometimes tense, and the solution with a red light allows you to hide the flaws in the graphics and the lack of blood. But this is one working episode for two hours. The rest of the action came out at best unprepossessing, and sometimes – shameful. Graphics look worse than last “Terminator” and even some Russian blockbusters. Yes, $ 45 million – the budget is relatively small, but Lee Wonnell managed to remove a similar topic Upgrade for an amount nine times less, and he looked cooler. And the final fight in the film by Dave Wilson brings to mind the times of the PlayStation 3.

“Bloodshot” – if not the worst, then definitely the most unprepossessing movie adaptation of comics in recent years. This picture will surely fail at the box office and will be forgotten in a month. But the most annoying is that she is likely to bury the hope of the Valiant movie universe. Although, if other adaptations were removed with the same neglect, then maybe it is for the better.