Take Vin Diesel, put him in a comic-book action film as a nanite-powered super-soldier, and you've got a guaranteed blockbuster hit, right? You would think so. Unfortunately, "Bloodshot" fails to live up to the potential of either its star or its source material. What could have been an impressive action movie ends up as something that is best described as terribly mediocre. The thing is, when it comes to action, mediocre is often worse than bad.

When a movie crosses the line into super bad territory, it often becomes good. "So bad it's good" is how cult classics are formed. When a movie is amazing, it can set the tone for its genre. When a movie is mediocre, it becomes forgettable, and that's the area that "Bloodshot" plays in. It's almost ironic, given that the main character can't remember anything about his own life.

The basis of Bloodshot (Diesel) is that he is a dead soldier who had his body donated to science. He's been rebuilt with nanites, which can heal any injury (even devastating ones, like getting blown up) almost instantly. The net result is that "Bloodshot" is more or less invulnerable, so long as the nanites stay charged up. You would think that this plot point would be an issue in the movie. It is, for all of 30 seconds, before it is immediately glossed over. Glossing over things is how the movie handles all of the interesting plot points, as well as the minor ones (those amazing nanites can heal Bloodshot but can't remove his scars).

One area where the movie had potential is in Bloodshot's pre-death backstory. We're told he was a soldier, but that's it. We don't know if he was a hero, a maniac, or a stone-cold killer. None of that is investigated in any level of detail. There is one brief scene where Bloodshot chats with someone from his past, and there are hints that he wasn't as good a person as he thinks he was, but then, in a flash, the scene ends, and that thread is ignored.

An exploration of "nature vs nurture" would have been an amazing thing to play with in the film. The idea is briefly mentioned by various characters, who point out that they aren't defined by their past, yet the idea holds no weight if you don't know anything about that past. The TV show "Dark Matter" managed to make this idea a core element of its storyline, and remained a fun sci-fi romp. It's too bad "Bloodshot" couldn't do the same.

Still, if the action had delivered, the story wouldn't have mattered. That's why you're going to see movies like this, right? Bonus points for story, but give me explosions, solid action, and the occasional one-liner, and I'm good. Somehow, the director behind "Bloodshot" managed to deliver some of the most unimaginative action scenes in recent memory.

The problem with the action is that there is no tension, and there is little in the way of choreography. As soon as Bloodshot knows he is invincible, he just doesn't care. If it had been in an over-the-top, "I don't give a shit" Deadpool style of not caring, it would have worked. But it's not that. Instead, it's a bunch of slow-mo shots of Bloodshot taking damage, getting repaired, and then steamrolling over the bad guys because they can't harm him. That's just boring.

You can have a character who is nearly invincible and still make them interesting. Idris Elba's "black superman" from Hobbs & Shaw was invincible. He was also infinitely more interesting than Diesel's Bloodshot. If Diesel had taken inspiration from Elba's outing, the whole tone of the film would have changed for the better.

That's not to say the film is totally devoid of action. It's just that the one solid fight scene doesn't even have Diesel in it. Instead, we get to see another agent, KT (Eiza González) fight off a handful of opponents in hand-to-hand combat. It's brief, but the choreography and cinematography both convey the action better than anywhere else in the film. González also manages to convey much more depth of character than Diesel, simply through intonation and delivery. It's obvious from the first time you see her that something doesn't sit right, and while the plot isn't the greatest, González does the best with what she is given.

The shining point in the film is a character who isn't introduced until the end of the second act and has relatively limited screen time. Lamorne Morris absolutely rocks the role of Wigans, a super genius tech geek who helps Bloodshot. Morris's sense of comedic timing, both verbally and visually, is spot-on, and he was responsible for most of the laughs in "Bloodshot." After the credits rolled, I ended up thinking more about Wigans than the title character of the movie. When a minor supporting character is more memorable than your stars, you've probably done something wrong.

In the end, "Bloodshot" is a concept with a crazy amount of potential that the filmmakers failed to deliver on. Instead of taking risks, they played it safe, almost to the point of boredom, and delivered a product that doesn't stand out in any real way. We've seen Diesel do much better when given a decent script and good direction. "Bloodshot" has neither.

Score: 5.0/10

"Bloodshot" is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 1 hours and 49 minutes. It is showing in 2-D and IMAX.