[UPDATE: Bloodshot is getting an early digital video on-demand release next week since its theatrical run was cut short. You can see the movie at home beginning March 24 and then come back and read this review!]

As I was sitting in the theater before Bloodshot began (preceded by about 25 minutes of trailers, of course), I realized that this could be the last movie I’d see in public for a while. Even before chain and independent theaters implemented social distancing measures, then closed entirely, major releases had been pushed back for months (at least), so we wouldn’t have been getting new movies for a while.

So if Bloodshot was the last new movie I’d see in theaters until maybe — maybe — the summer, did Vin Diesel send us into self-imposed isolation on a high note? Well, sort of.

Toss Robocop, Captain America and Wolverine into a bag, knead them all together and the result is Bloodshot. Maybe this aspiring franchise for Vin Diesel should have been called One Shot — Charlize Theron and Seth Rogen having already claimed Long Shot — because we probably won’t see another movie with this character. Yet the premise, based on a Valiant Comics series, has potential.

I only had about 275 words to work with for my Mountain Xpress review, so couldn’t really get into how little Bloodshot resembled the Valiant Comics series it’s based on. But to me, that was one of the big problems with the movie.

For instance, here’s the first page of Bloodshot: Reborn (written by one of my favorite authors, Jeff Lemire), which wasn’t source material for the movie.

In the movie, Diesel doesn’t have red eyes or white skin except for just a few seconds during the story’s climax. He does use a lot of guns, however, so that remained faithful to the core premise.

To me, Bloodshot didn’t focus on any aspects of the character that were most interesting from the comic books. He can’t trust his memory because it’s been deleted so many times. He also constantly needs protein to feed the nanites which heal his injuries, which sometimes doesn’t bode well for nearby animals.

I doubt there will be any Bloodshot sequels, but maybe we’ll see some reference to these in a follow-up. (The protein thing could be kind of gross, though. But the right writer and director could make it darkly funny. )

Director Dave Wilson’s background is in digital effects, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that the CGI in the movie is quite good. So are the fight scenes and shootouts, though a top-notch action director such as David Leitch, maybe someone like Peter Berg or Robert Rodriguez, could’ve raised this movie to something better.

Please read the full review at Mountain Xpress.