Bloodshot (2020)
Directed by Dave Wilson
After he and his wife are murdered, marine Ray Garrison is resurrected by a team of scientists. Enhanced with nanotechnology, he becomes a superhuman, biotech killing machine—'Bloodshot'. As Ray first trains with fellow super-soldiers, he cannot recall anything from his former life. But when his memories flood back and he remembers the man that killed both him and his wife, he breaks out of the facility to get revenge, only to discover that there's more to the conspiracy than he thought.
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49 films that influenced Bloodshot
What critics say influenced Bloodshot
The most noticeable influence is “Universal Soldier,” a film that shares so many plot elements that “Bloodshot” can be classified as a blatant rip-off.
Wilson’s Bloodshot is a lame Universal Soldier ripoff starring an aged Vin Diesel as the title superhero.
Such a concept traverses much of the same territory as Universal Soldier and RoboCop , among others.
Bloodshot is based on a Valiant comic, but for less comic book literate viewers, it may remind you more of sci-fi films like Robocop or Universal Soldier .
Van Damme's biggest hit – debatably – was a cheerfully nonsensical load of rubbish called Universal Soldier , in which Van Damme starred alongside Dolph Lundgren as soldiers who had been killed in action, reanimated by some futuristic technology, to carry out nefarious missions under the cover of being, err, dead.
Hey, this critic’s pulse probably never broke 35 during the 109-minute runtime, and say what you want about the schlocky, soldiers-turned-cyborgs “Universal Soldier” (1992), but at least Dolph Lundgren stood opposite Jean-Claude Van Damme throughout the cheesy nonsense.
If trying to launch a brand new superhero cinematic universe, Sony could’ve done worse than Bloodshot, a character whose origin story is basically a ripoff of Robocop and Wolverine.
You don’t need to have seen Paul Verhoeven’s RoboCop to know where this one is headed.
Such a concept traverses much of the same territory as Universal Soldier and RoboCop, among others.
Based on a bestselling Valiant comic book title, “Bloodshot” is a cousin to action films like “Robocop” and “Total Recall” where the hero survives death and finds themselves trapped in an uncertain reality.
“It’s Iron Man meets RoboCop by way of Wolverine.
It will also remind the viewer of Robocop at times (the original one not that remake wack one).
It couldn’t compare to The Dark Knight , Iron Man or Thor .
That’s when more of the story’s derivative nature comes to the forefront, with echoes of Terminator , RoboCop , Iron Man , and others all bouncing off each other.
“It’s Iron Man meets RoboCop by way of Wolverine .
Is it good enough to be Valiant’s Iron Man ?
Dave Wilson, a visual effects artist making his feature directing debut here, certainly knows his way around some striking body FX that are reminiscent of TERMINATOR 2 in their impact, without copying details.
Films like “Terminator 2: Judgment Day,” “Robocop” and “Total Recall” are thrown into a blender and the diluted, flavorless results leave you hankering for the original ingredients.
Ray is now super-strong and has the power to immediately rejuvenate, sort of like the cyborg in “Terminator 2.” Ah, but he’s lost his memory and he’s forced to keep on living the same day (with certain variations) over and over again, like Drew Barrymore in “50 First Dates.”
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Like many of its predecessors, Bloodshot tries to flip the concept introduced in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
There's a comforting familiarity to "Bloodshot," an assemblage of action clichés that cribs liberally from "The Matrix," "The Terminator" and even Zack Snyder's "Man of Steel."
This Escapist film critic says Vin Diesel’s new superhero venture, Bloodshot , is Universal Soldier crossed with The Matrix … a few decades too late.
In addition to being Captain America/Blade/Neo from The Matrix and literally Vin Diesel, Bloodshot is also the protagonist of Memento .
He is — this may not be the technical term — Wi-Fi-enabled, meaning he can instantly download and digest a piloting manual, just like in “The Matrix.”
Garrison also boasts trace elements of The Terminator (he’s an online-enabled murder borg), and his story is depicted with flourishes straight out of The Matrix (oh, the incessant slow-mo bullet-time and virtual-reality effects!) and Spider-Man 2 (one baddie employs Doctor Octopus-style mecha-arms during the finale).
Even the plot itself — credited to Jeff Wadlow (yes, the same guy who wrote and directed the horrendous Fantasy Island) and Eric Heisserer — is a mishmash of ideas borrowed from the likes of RoboCop, The Terminator and Edge of Tomorrow, with the latter has a Groundhog Day-like story device involving a dead U.S. marine (Vin Diesel’s Ray Garrison) brought back to life through a scientific experiment supervised by Dr Emil Harting (Guy Pearce) and turned him into a nanobot-enhanced super-soldier.
There's a comforting familiarity to "Bloodshot," an assemblage of action clichés that cribs liberally from "The Matrix," "The Terminator" and even Zack Snyder's "Man of Steel."
Garrison also boasts trace elements of The Terminator (he’s an online-enabled murder borg), and his story is depicted with flourishes straight out of The Matrix (oh, the incessant slow-mo bullet-time and virtual-reality effects!) and Spider-Man 2 (one baddie employs Doctor Octopus-style mecha-arms during the finale).
One could take the baseless Bloodshot as a poor man’s knockoff as The Terminator.
The concept owes a debt to Edge of Tomorrow and Memento , the latter of which Bloodshot winks at by casting in a major role Guy Pearce, the star of Memento .
Even the plot itself — credited to Jeff Wadlow (yes, the same guy who wrote and directed the horrendous Fantasy Island) and Eric Heisserer — is a mishmash of ideas borrowed from the likes of RoboCop, The Terminator and Edge of Tomorrow, with the latter has a Groundhog Day-like story device involving a dead U.S. marine (Vin Diesel’s Ray Garrison) brought back to life through a scientific experiment supervised by Dr Emil Harting (Guy Pearce) and turned him into a nanobot-enhanced super-soldier.
This is an action romp in the vein of films like “Edge of Tomorrow,” where it also likes to mess with our perceptions by screwing with reality.
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Even the plot itself — credited to Jeff Wadlow (yes, the same guy who wrote and directed the horrendous Fantasy Island ) and Eric Heisserer — is a mishmash of ideas borrowed from the likes of RoboCop, The Terminator and Edge of Tomorrow, with the latter has a Groundhog Day-like story device involving a dead U.S. marine (Vin Diesel’s Ray Garrison) brought back to life through a scientific experiment supervised by Dr Emil Harting (Guy Pearce) and turned him into a nanobot-enhanced super-soldier.
Bloodshot is a new Vin Diesel action movie that was based on a 1992 Valiant comic book of the same name, optioned by Sony in 2015 with a plan to turn it into “an R-rated adaptation that will be tonally and aesthetically influenced by high-concept, sci-fi blockbusters of the late ’80s including Robocop , Terminator , and Total Recall .”
OCP built Robocop but he remembers being Alex Murphy (Peter Weller).
Think of Garrison as the big screen’s version of The Six Million Dollar Man crossed with the revenge factor of Clint Eastwood’s spaghetti western Hang ‘Em High.