BEFORE: I'm starting to see promos on Food Network for shows like "Halloween Wars", "Halloween Baking Championship" and "Outrageous Pumpkins", so fall is definitely on the way - just 15 or so films before I can start watching horror films on October 1, and from there, it's just a short couple of chains until the end of the year - I'm also just 70 movies away from a Christmas film. This is kind of my version of a grandmaster playing chess, one who can visualize that he (or she) is 10 moves away from checkmate. I can tell that I'm just 70 films away from Christmas, so take that, chess players. Fall doesn't officially begin for another two weeks, and I've got my holiday movies planned out. But first I've got to finish September, which involves a few superhero films, some time travel movies, a couple comedies, one documentary and one animated film for the kids.
Guy Pearce carries over again from "Equals".
THE PLOT: Ray Garrison, a slain soldier, is re-animated with superpowers.
AFTER: You have to wonder if the people who write comic books are just sticking to the winning formula, again and again. Plus, I wonder if they're using some kind of name generator to come up with new characters, because there sure does seem to be a lot of overlap. Wolverine was the biggest character in comic books about 15-20 years ago, so naturally that generated a lot of imitators, other violent characters with healing factors, like Deadpool, and more recently, the Hulk. In one sense, all comic book characters are immortal, because even if one writer kills one off to get a spike in sales, another writer's just going to come up with a way to bring him back a few months later, in another #1 issue for a second spike. But you can't pull that trick with Wolverine or Deadpool, because it seems they can't die in the first place.
On the DC side of things, there's a bunch of characters with similar M.O.'s, like Deathstroke (aka Deathstroke the Terminator, who's also an influence on the Deadpool character) and Deadshot and Killshot and probably a few others that fall into the "elite super-agent with deadly aim" category. Now we've got Bloodsport too, a minor DC villain being elevated to Class A status in the new "Suicide Squad" movie. Essentially, in the ways that matter, they're all (more or less) the same character, though - Deathstroke = Deadpool = Deadshot = Bloodshot = Bloodsport, see what I mean? Before I left the movie theater, another usher and I were arguing over Bloodshot, namely whether he was a DC or Marvel character - I said DC, because I KNEW he wasn't Marvel, my companion swore he was Marvel, though. Neither of us were right, Bloodsport is a character from Valiant Comics, which I'm guessing is America's fourth largest comic-book publisher, after the Big Two and Dark Horse.
But overall Bloodshot is one part Captain America (super-soldier with enhanced strength & reflexes), one part Punisher (soldier with knowledge of all weapons), one part Wolverine/Deadpool (incredible healing ability, plus built in a lab), and one part Iron Man (built out of tech, plus glowing chest). Throw in half a part Groot (that voice) and you've maybe got a winning movie formula, or at least that was probably the plan. The film didn't make back its $45 million budget from worldwide gross, so it didn't really work, the proof's in the pudding.
What went wrong? Well, maybe audiences don't like having the narrative change, doing a complete u-turn about a third of the way through the film, that might be one problem. There's such a great set-up here, when a soldier returns from a successful hostage recovery mission, spends a night re-connecting with his wife, and then both he and his wife get kidnapped by the terrorist in charge, who wants to know who sold him out, and won't take "I don't know" for an answer. It, umm, doesn't end well, only it does - Ray Garrison gets resurrected as a super-soldier with nanites for blood, and becomes part of a team of enhanced super-soldiers, financed by a billion-dollar tech company to become the future of the military, God bless Amurica. Only first he gets flashes of the man who killed him and ruined his life, and before he commits to a second lifetime of serving his country, he's got to go rogue, track down the terrorist and get his revenge. Damn, but that's a GREAT origin story, the first third of this film follows the comic-book formula to a "T" and if they'd stopped right there, they might have had something notable.
But, that just wasn't enough for somebody, and then we all had to dive down the rabbit-hole of memory implants, virtual reality and deepfakes, and when someone pulls a reversal like that, it starts to make me feel like I've wasted my time, like come on, guys, what are we all really DOING here if it wasn't the thing that drew me in in the first place? After you establish the premise of your film, you can't just say, "Whoa, I got you there, we were only kidding!" Like take any movie, say "The Incredibles", and the first sequence introduces us to this family of superheroes and what they can do, twenty minutes into the film you can't just say, "Nope, this is now a film about a family of musicians, they play instruments and sing together and try to become a famous band. The superhero thing was, like, all a dream that the father was having." We'd all feel ripped off, and rightfully so. The only film that I can think of that changed the direction of reality 1/3 into the movie was "The Matrix", and there was a valid reason for doing that. But this isn't "The Matrix", it's just a two-bit super-hero film and it was on such a good path that I wish it had stuck with it, it could have really been a hoot to see the team of enhanced soldiers working together, employing their unique former disabilities and enhanced tech to save the world - but now we're never going to get there.
Speaking of that, we're at a point in time where the Paralympics get nearly as much attention as the Olympics do, and so there was a real opportunity here to tell a story with wounded soldiers being given tech enhancements, and coming back better, stronger and faster, to borrow a line from "The Six Million Dollar Man". They could have even taking things a step further and hired actors with handi-capabilities instead of just beefcake looks, but why wish for things we can't have? But the message, the message was so good - this soldier lost both legs, so we gave him mechanical ones that are SO much better than the original ones, they're titanium steel, they allow him to run faster than a car, climb up walls, power kick bad guys, etc. A real chance to turn a disability into a super-ability, and send the right message out to the kids, about rising above the challenges that life throws at them, endurance and perseverance and all that. But since the guy who got the enhanced legs turns out to be a giant scumbag, what kind of message does that send? Congratulations, this is now the Jacob Pistorius of movies, it took every opportunity to be positive and celebratory and pissed it away.
Also, science is supposed to be GOOD, that's another thing we all need to here right now - if anything's going to fix the pandemic, climate change and the non-threat of election fraud, it's going to be science, because fraudulent information and ignoring science got us to where we are now. So much movie science here is used toward bad ends that I really can't endorse this message. They are making a sequel to this, so there's always hope for the future, but it won't arrive until after "Guardians of the Galaxy 3" and "Fast & Furious 10", so I'm not holding out much hope.
Also starring Vin Diesel (last heard in "Ralph Breaks the Internet"), Eiza Gonzalez (last seen in "I Care a Lot"), Sam Heughan (last seen in "The Spy Who Dumped Me"), Toby Kebbell (last seen in "The Female Brain"), Lamorne Morris (last seen in "Jumanji: The Next Level"), Talulah Riley (last seen in "Pride & Prejudice"), Alex Hernandez, Johannes Haukur Johannesson (last seen in "Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga"), Tamer Burjaq, Siddharth Dhananjay, Clyde Berning (last seen in "Monster Hunter").
RATING: 4 out of 10 bags of flour. (wait, what?)
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