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To be fair, Vin Diesel´s new movie Bloodshot looks pretty good on paper.

It has a cool, science fiction premise that offers ample opportunity for over-the-top action sequences, eye-popping special effects and even a few emotional moments to give the story some gravitas.

Unfortunately, looking good on paper doesn’t guarantee that the movie will be any good when it finally hits theaters. That is what’s going on with Bloodshot.

All the elements are there, but they never mesh into anything special. It´s certainly not the blockbuster franchise that the filmmakers were imagining when they first read the script.

Diesel stars as a soldier who has been resurrected by flooding his bloodstream with nanobots. Not only does this bring our hero back from the dead, but they also give him super strength and the ability to recover immediately from any injury.

After setting this up, the rest of the movie revolves around taking vengeance on the man who killed our now-resurrected soldier. There will be a twist to the story, which I won’t spoil, but its pretty easy to figure out what is going on thanks to a pedestrian screenplay and some pretty mediocre acting.

I’m not talking about Diesel, whose main job here is to bring the beefcake. On this aspect, he is as impressive as ever. As is his costar, Eiza Gonzalez, playing the female version of Diesel’s super soldier. The two make a striking pair, which is perfect for the poster.

Unfortunately they don’t get the opportunity to do much more than pose.

The bad guys are asked to do some acting, and they bring cartoon villainy to their performances. It’s laughably overacted to the point of distraction. All that was missing was a mustache for the villain to twirl.

The action sequences are hit and miss. The best one takes place in a flare-lit tunnel after a flour truck flips over, making it look like a brutal fight in the middle of a blood-red snowstorm. Despite the contrivance of the scene, it does look great, which is what the filmmakers were doing after.

Ultimately, Bloodshot is a mediocre action flick that has some nice visual elements occasionally, but just doesn’t have the magic that would have turned this film into something special. I’m not saying it’s a bad movie, just one that had the potential to be so much more.

Movie reviews by Sean, “The Movie Guy,” are published each week in The Port Arthur News and seen weekly on KFDM and Fox4. Sean welcomes your comments via email at smcbride@sbgtv.com.