Commentary: The Twist In ‘Bloodshot’ Worked Against The Film

Superhero movies are tough. A lot of times, the filmmakers want to honor the source material so fans will recognize it while also making the concepts clear for newcomers. This all has to take place while avoiding tropes and cliches of the genre, which may be extremely hard to work around. Bloodshot, which adapts the Valiant Comics character, had a mixed reception from audiences. But it does do something interesting: a twist that, although predictable, still provides some fan service while also leaning into the cliches it should have left out.

Bloodshot follows a soldier played by Vin Diesel who is killed in action after his love interest is killed in front of him. His body is donated and brought back to life using nanites in his blood. But he goes against the organization who revived him in order to get revenge on his lover’s killer. The twist is that she is not dead at all. Those were just false memories implanted in his mind so that he can be manipulated. Every time he is reset, there was a new “killer” in his memory for him to go after.

The film begins in one of these false memories, which allows the audience to follow along. Those who are familiar with Bloodshot know right from the start that this is a possibility. But the movie goes ahead anyway, following the cliches and tropes fans of cthe character are familiar with. Bloodshot wakes up, his powers are explained, and he experiments with them before going on a revenge mission. The film leans so hard into these tropes that it can be aggravating that the movie didn’t do something a bit more original. But when the predictable twist comes halfway through, it’s obvious that the movie was playing a little bit of a trick on viewers. It did things the wrong way in order to mislead them, which is admirably fascinating. It’s just a matter of whether or not enough of those wrong decisions can be forgiven for anyone –fans or newcomer — to appreciate the attempt.

Bloodshot is now streaming on Hulu.