Bloodshot (2020)

Plot of Bloodshot: Ray Garrison is a soldier who had been killed and has been brought back to life by a company, Rising Spirit Technologies, RST, who have given him a body which is maintained by nanites, and are capable of rebuilding him more or less instantly if he is injured. Ray has experienced a terrible event where his wife is killed in front of him, and he is also dispatched, waking up on an operating table in RST. He identifies the man who has killed him and goes off in search of him, eventually overcoming the man’s guards and killing him. However, he is being programmed to kill evil men by the operator of RST, Dr Emil Harting. Harting sends him out again, this time to UK, where he kills another crime lord. However at this time he teams up with a super computer wizard, who frees him from RST control. Ray goes to his former home where he finds his wife alive, and married to someone else. She is surprised to see him since he was dead. Harting sends out two other recovered and modified soldiers after him requiring him to fight a final battle.

Content: The first scene is Ray being held hostage and his wife and him being killed by an evil crime lord. Only later we find that he has been programmed to follow this man and kill him (not quite a spoiler I don’t think). Also in the RST laboratory are a couple of other guys with limbs missing which have been replaced by super  technology. Also a female former navy diver KT. I don’t think she contributes much to the plot, but she looks good. Her breathing is controlled by Harting. They are both later freed from RST control by Wiggins, a super computer  expert. There are numbers of car chases and fights, the final combat really impressive, and the only reason I have given the film 6/10.

A View: This film was not much liked by the critics and is said due to COVID restrictions not to have made any money. Perhaps Vin Diesel was in his element as a man who is almost a robot, and he was generally dissed by the critics “disinterested in his lines even before he has finished saying them”. I really liked the idea of what elsewhere are known as nanobots looking after his body. This is a trope which has been used in Red Dwarf, where they rebuild Lister’s body and also in the William Gibson novel The Peripheral, where they can destroy as well as build. A sequel was planned but I don’t think it has made it into the cinema. As one of the critics said, maybe a film you might watch while folding laundry.

Fun Fact: The Bloodshot Valiant comic has sold more than one million copies!