Dumb meatheads need superheroes too, I guess, and that’s pretty much why companies like Image Comics, Boom! Studios and, in the case of Bloodshot, Valiant Comics were created. With practically every title of theirs a four-color tribal tattoo on acid-free paper, that same illustrated idiocy has moved to the movie screen with the spectacularly stupid movie of the same name.

Human circumcised penis Vin Diesel is Ray Garrison, a former special-ops soldier who not only watches his wife murdered Anton Chigurh-style, but is shot in the head for his troubles. He wakes up to find that all of his blood has been replaced by nanobots and he is virtually indestructible. As his memory comes back to him, he escapes to track the killer down.

Repeat ad infinitum.

It turns out that the guy behind Rising Spirit Technologies, the company that keeps bringing Ray back, is a petty crybaby who is using Ray to settle his own personal scores. Of course, eventually Ray finds out about this and, in his gravelly sluggish way, doles out super-powered retribution that typically involves his face getting blasted off and slowly reassembled.

He’s called Bloodshot, we learn toward the end, because his eyes go bloodshot when he uses his regeneration powers, zoomed in on closely while fighting down the side of a skyscraper in Kuala Lumpur.

From this brief description, the film might sound plenty entertaining; in reality, it’s mind-numbingly slow and, worse, brain-fryingly dumb. It reminds me of those terrible ’90s-era adaptations of indie comics like Spawn, minus the badly rendered computer demons, something that might have actually helped save this no-necked junk. —Louis Fowler

Get it at Amazon.

Comic book movies are, for the most part, stupid. Sadly, as our society has become a bleak pit of absolute despair, so have the recent ultra-gritty four-color adaptations that have hit the screen. Those that, in the past, wallowed in their inherent camp were often mocked and relegated to various “worst movies” lists, with one of the most infamous being the comic-strip flick Flash Gordon.

Unfairly, I might add, because this Flash is a lot of fun, reminding us that comic books are supposed to be speculative blasts for kids instead of introspective dirges for grown-ups. As a childhood filmic obsession of mine, it’s really one of the few films that holds up — possibly better! — today.

As Earth comes under violent atmospheric attack — look out for the hot hail! — New York Jets quarterback Flash Gordon (Sam J. Jones) and travel agent Dale Arden (Melody Anderson) find themselves on a deco rocket piloted by supposed loon Dr. Zarkov (Topol), headed to the planet Mongo, the source of the recent cosmic disruptions.

The crew finds a highly stylized society of warmongers and slaves, led by the somewhat problematic Ming the Merciless (Max von Sydow), a flamboyant despot with a taste for sadomasochism and broad Asian caricatures — something that the red, white and blue all-American Flash ain’t having no part of, befriending various races, including birdmen, arborists and so on, into defeating the merciless Ming.

The film is full of so many scenes of colorful camp that it’s amazing this never became the Rocky Horror of nerd culture, but it’s no surprise as the script was written by the great Lorenzo Semple Jr., one of the few screenwriters to truly get Batman, James Bond and Sheena. At least I think so.

Luckily, he got Flash, too: an affable Joe with only his athletic ability and charming demeanor to take down an evil empire. And let’s not forget the heart-pounding score by Queen, a soundtrack that would remain unrivaled until a few years later when they were assigned to compose the epic music for … wait for it … Highlander. —Louis Fowler

Get it at Amazon.