{"id":46220,"date":"2020-03-23T13:49:06","date_gmt":"2020-03-23T17:49:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=46220"},"modified":"2020-03-23T13:49:13","modified_gmt":"2020-03-23T17:49:13","slug":"bloodshot-review-vod","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2020\/03\/bloodshot-review-vod\/","title":{"rendered":"Bloodshot Review VOD"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Bob Garver<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NOTE: I am reviewing this film\nbecause of its upcoming Video On Demand release. I fully acknowledge and\nrespect the decision to close most of the theaters in the country due to\nCOVID-19. Stay safe, everybody. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u201cBloodshot\u201d\nis the very definition of a Vin Diesel \u201cvehicle.\u201d There is nothing to entice\npeople to see this movie other than that it has Vin Diesel. Even the \u201cFast\n& Furious\u201d movies (which I realize should better fit the term \u201cvehicle\u201d)\nare fun for people who like fast cars and crazy stunts, with Diesel being an\nimportant-but-not-essential factor. But take away Diesel from \u201cBloodshot,\u201d and\nyou\u2019ve got a laughably useless movie. Actually, it\u2019s pretty useless even with\nDiesel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

            Diesel\nstars as Ray Garrison, a soldier who opens the film by successfully carrying\nout a dangerous mission in Africa due to a tip he received. He then goes on\nvacation to Italy, where he spends the night with his girlfriend Gina (Talulah\nRiley). The next morning the two are kidnapped and held hostage at the behest\nof Martin Axe (Toby Kebbell), who wants to know who gave Ray the tip for the\nAfrica mission. Axe, it should be noted, dances around maniacally to \u201cPsycho\nKiller\u201d by Talking Heads as if he could hope to capture one percent of the\ncoolness of Mr. Blonde dancing around to \u201cStuck in the Middle with You\u201d in\n\u201cReservoir Dogs.\u201d Then he kills Ray and Gina. If only the movie ended there, so\nI could have an excuse to give up on it after that embarrassing dance scene.\nAlas, it presses on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Ray\nwakes up in the lab of Dr. Emil Harting (Guy Pearce), who explains that Ray has\nbeen resurrected using next-generation tech that can repair damaged tissue. He\u2019s\nnow basically a superhero and definitely a super killer. Harting introduces Ray\nto some fellow test subjects: the robotic-limbed Jimmy Dalton (Sam Heughan),\nthe robotic-sighted Marcus Tibbs (Alex Hernandez), and the robotic-chested KT\n(Eiza Gonzalez), who insists that her name is not \u201cKatie.\u201d Ray then remembers\nthat he has a vendetta against Axe, and breaks out of the facility to get his\nrevenge. If only the movie ended after he does so, so I could have an excuse to\ngive up on this \u201cRoboCop\u201d ripoff. Alas, it presses on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            It\nturns out that Harting and his team haven\u2019t been entirely honest about the\ncircumstances surrounding Ray\u2019s mechanizations. I know, who would have guessed\nthat the millionaire industrialist with cyborg henchmen wouldn\u2019t be on the\nlevel? Ray turns his attention to battling Harting, with the help of a bumbling\ntech guy (Lamorne Morris) and one of Harting\u2019s enhanced underlings. I won\u2019t say\nwhich one, but let\u2019s just say they\u2019d make a pretty lousy love interest of they\ndidn\u2019t help him. If only this movie ended at any point before the end of its\n109-minute runtime because I have a million other things I can be doing. Alas,\nit presses on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            The\naction, story, and dialogue are exactly what you\u2019d expect from a movie titled\n\u201cBloodshot\u201d that can\u2019t even bother to try to be successful with an R rating.\nI\u2019ve heard complaints that Diesel is miscast (apparently he was a last-minute\nreplacement for first choice Jared Leto), but action movies are his wheelhouse\nand I can\u2019t imagine any actor adding dimension to the one-note protagonist of\nthis disposable film. At least I can take some solace in knowing that instead\nof doing okay against minimal competition at the box office, this movie can\nrightfully bomb on VOD where it has excellent competition in the form of other\nentertainment options like better movies, TV, streaming, video games, books,\nand family togetherness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grade: D (for Diesel!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBloodshot\u201d is rated PG-13 for\nintense sequences of violence, some suggestive material and language. Its\nrunning time is 109 minutes. The film comes to Video On Demand on March 24. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Bob Garver NOTE: I am reviewing this film because of its upcoming Video On Demand release. I fully acknowledge and respect the decision to close most of the theaters… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":46221,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46220"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}