
A bad guy, Martin Axe (Tony Kebbell), shimmies into a meat locker to the ominous bop of Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer” (his dance moves are pure Michael Madsen from “Reservoir Dogs”) and once there proceeds to threaten Garrison with executing his wife, Gina (Talulah Riley), right in front of him.

In the opening sequence, he leads a combat rescue mission in Kenya, and shortly afterwards gets taken prisoner in a scene so movie-ish that we’re not entirely sure whether it’s meant to be stupido or meta. What gives “Bloodshot” its baseline jolt of effectiveness is that we aren’t just watching Garrison caught up in his programmed experience of virtual reality we’re living it right along with him. Embrace the new model! It’s the only kicking-ass-through-the-looking-glass spectacle you’ll need.” But “Bloodshot” is here to tell you, “Let go of those earlier movie illusions. Watching the movie, we think we know what’s real and what’s not. Here we are, once again, signing on for a paranoid kinetic fantasy cobbled together out of the blockbuster sci-fi elements of the past. If you’re part of the audience that goes to see “Bloodshot,” you may experience your own version of that pleasingly disorienting unplugged feeling. He goes on a vengeful murder mission, hunting down the scoundrel who killed his wife, but even this payback odyssey isn’t what it seems - it’s the creation of forces out to control him. Marine, Ray Garrison ( Vin Diesel), who gets killed and brought back to life in a newly enhanced and indestructible form. It happens, once again, in “ Bloodshot,” a derivative but catchy pulp action superhero head trip about a U.S.


That’s what happened in “The Matrix,” when Keanu Reeves’ Neo woke up to learn that he’d been trapped in a narcotizing dream world. A movie hero gets unplugged from the web of grand illusion he’s been living in, then dunked into the reality behind the façade.
