Even if I had my eyes closed, I would still know that that is none other than Vin Diesel.
Now, am I surprised that it isn’t Fast and Furious 21? Yes I am, but we’re going to
be looking at 2020’s Ray.
Spoiler alert. While I might give you my opinion on the film, that’s no substitute for watching
it for yourself. Links to the film are in the description.
As Ray prepares to breach the building, whoever is inside unleashes a barrage of bullets through
the door. Against his orders, he breaches the building as soon as they stop to reload.
As he checks every corner, he makes his way upstairs until he makes it to where the hostage
is being kept. When he’s told to drop his gun, he looks around for another option before
setting it on the ground.
After some short negotiations, he puts down the man that’s holding the prisoner hostage,
and that’s the end of the mission. When he and his squad make it back to the base,
he’s welcomed by his wife, Gina, and they go on a little outing. That night, Gina tries
to question if he can maybe make it back in the same shape that he leaves. He assures
her that he’s just fine, and then he shows her what his body can still do.
The next morning, Ray wakes up to find that Gina has gone out to get them breakfast. When
he goes to take a bath, he hears footsteps outside, and he finishes them off without
any issues.
I know that Vin Diesel is getting up there in age, but I can still absolutely see him
taking on someone like he does here. I feel like if he had to, he could definitely pick
someone up and drop them in a toilet. No doubt. Not to mention, I love how we’re getting
a nice bit of action this quick in the film.
As he rushes out of his room to find Gina, he bumps into a man in the hall, and he falls
to the ground soon after. Before his eyes shut, he sees that the man has a syringe that
he used on him. When he wakes up, he’s tied to a chair in a meat locker, and the same
man comes into the room with a nice little intro.
I don’t think they could’ve made a more realistically, comfortable, modern villain
if they tried. The slides, the jacket, the beanie, and the dance all come together to
make a believably cocky villain. I know a handful of people off the top of my head that
I know would dance like that if they got to have an intro. Comment someone that you think
would dance like that.
When Ray asks him who he is, we find out that his name is Martin Axe, and he’s there to
find out who told him about the hostages. When Ray refuses to answer, they bring in
Gina and strap her to a chair in front of him. When he gives him the same answer, Martin
puts a spike attached to an air compressor to her head, and he waits for Ray to give
a different answer.
When Ray mentions that he only goes where they tell him, Martin acts as though that’s
a good enough answer, but when Ray tells Gina that everything is going to be ok, that gets
shot down quickly.
We all saw that coming. What kind of story would we be here for if he just let them go?!
Sure enough, he shoots the spike into her head.
After Ray comprehends what just happened, he tells Martin that he should just kill him
now, otherwise he’s going to find him and end him.
For once in these movies, the bad guy takes the advice! He pulls out a gun, thanks him
for the advice, and kills him. Do you know how many times the bad guy would’ve won
if he hadn’t had to blow up his own ego and have a monologue or some convoluted way
of killing the hero? This is my new favorite villain. Of course, the one time the bad guy
does what he should, it doesn’t matter.
Ray wakes up in a laboratory, and he sees KT and Dr. Emil who is just happy to see Ray
still has brain functions. Dr. Emil welcomes him to the facility, and Ray sees that the
doctor has some augmented body parts. When he has to remember anything about himself,
he finds that he can’t even remember his name, and Dr. Emil says that his body was
donated by the military.
The more Ray talks, the more Dr. Emil realizes that he doesn’t know he died. The doctor
explains that he’s the first that they’ve been able to bring back and that this is his
second chance. Emil takes Ray on a tour of the facility and shows him that they work
on rebuilding soldiers.
Do we have a company that’s working on things like this right now? This seems like useful
tech to have.
I mean he just sliced a gash in his hand that would’ve taken forever to heal, and it’s
gone just like that.
Emil explains that there are tiny Nanites in his bloodstream that rebuild him. Later,
he takes Ray around the facility to explain some other rebuilt soldiers and their augmentations.
KT is immune to inhalants now, Tibbs has cameras that replace the sight he lost so now he sees
everything, and finally Jimmy Dalton lost his legs, so they engineered new legs. He
doesn’t believe it at first.
Honestly, could you imagine finding out you died, then get introduced to a bunch of super
soldiers? I wouldn’t believe any of it either.
After he has a dream that gives him a glimpse of his memory, he wakes up and decides to
test his new strength. Needless to say, he loves his new abilities. While he trains,
he spots KT training in a water tank, and he gets caught up in how mesmerizing her movements
are. When KT takes him to get a drink, the song that Martin danced to plays over the
speaker, and memories flood into his mind.
After the memory ends, he packs up a bag and takes a truck from the parking garage. When
Emil contacts him through the Nanites, he tries to explain to him that he needs him
to come back, but the Nanites actually start scanning the database for all information
on Martin’s whereabouts.
So that’s very handy and VERY ILLEGAL! He even learns how to fly by downloading the
flight manual straight into his brain! How perfect is that?!
Meanwhile, Martin is being escorted from his apartment, but Ray finds him by running the
GPS for the vehicles that are running in a convoy. Sure enough, he traps them in a tunnel
by ramming the first truck with a semi. When the dust settles, the team tries to see if
they’ll be able to push through, but the truck is attacked by Ray. After they think
that they’ve killed him, they all get out to look for more assailants.
Before too long, Ray gets up and takes down every single team member in sight. Martin
calls his boss and warns him that they finished making Ray, and it becomes clear that this
goes deeper than a simple revenge kill. The boss tells him to let the professionals handle
putting him down.
He’s not wrong. This is some close quarters stuff, and they’re all coming at him like
they're expecting some big game herd to be waiting around the corner of the car door!
Plus, if I saw a guy heal like that in front of me, I would at least want to handle this
with a little distance if I could. These guys keep creeping up on him like he’ll stop
if he’s taken by surprise.
I mean, he literally gets half his face blown off and just keeps moving forward. Time to
make peace with your maker and hope he thinks you're dead already. There is always the idea
that his Nanites aren’t endless. He has to run out eventually, but no one here was
armed like that.
Ray can’t hear Martin’s pleas, but he doesn’t care either. He shoots him in cold
blood and walks away. The next day, he gets picked up by the doctor and his crew.
His tablet literally confirms that he is low on Nanites. So that theory is sound.
KT asks him if he got what he wanted, and he says that he’s done now. When he gets
back to the base, Dalton shuts him down and tells him exactly what’s going on. Dalton
admits that they just keep bringing him back to this same place, shut him down, and press
the reset button until they have another target ready for him. They program his memory to
think that the next victim is the one that killed his wife, and he goes on to say that
she’s not actually dead.
Sure enough, Dalton shuts him down, and they refill him with Nanites. Back upstairs, we
see that they are revamping his memories to fit what they want him to believe. When KT
arrives on the control floor, Emil confronts her about sticking to the script. She doesn’t
understand what the big deal is when they just erase his memory anyways, but they assure
her that it is absolutely necessary to follow what has been put in front of her.
She’s so stuck in this job though. She even pieces together that if she walks away and
quits, they’ll just shut off her breathing apparatus. So much for free will, but I guess
you don’t really get that option when you’re rebuilt by a corporation.
Emil assures her that this is the last one before they take this to the market, but it
still doesn’t sit right with her. Emil sends her to reset Ray’s bunk, and they change
his memory of Martin killing his wife to that of Nick Baris. Nick is Emil’s ex partner,
and he’s also the man that Martin had called right before he got killed.
After they go through the whole spiel of waking him up and introducing him to everyone, they
play the song again, and his new fake memories flood through. He leaves the building to kill
Nick Baris, and everything goes according to plan. When Ray gets ready to leave, Nick’s
worker sets off an EMP that shuts him down.
Later, we see Nick’s friend, Wigans, wake him up in a makeshift computer lab, and he
tells him how he waited for him to finish off Nick so he could go ahead with his own
plan. While he sits there on the table, Ray gets recollections of how he thought his wife
was murdered by a different person over and over.
That would be a little maddening. To see the same part of your subconscious play over and
over, but the key part is different every time. Sort of like deja vu but each time it’s
the wrong person.
Once Wigans hears this, he begins to understand how every kill seemed like a personal vendetta
had been played out. After hearing all of this, he begins to think that Gina could really
still be out there. Before he leaves, he cuts his hand to drain some blood into a cup so
Wigans can figure out how to keep him from being reprogrammed again.
As he leaves the facility, Emil sees him on the GPS again, and he sends Tibbs and Dalton
after him. When Ray shows up on Gina’s doorstep, she’s more than surprised to see him there.
After they embrace each other, he mentions that he’s home, and Gina wonders why they’re
having this conversation again.
Soon, Gina’s daughter shows up, and Ray questions how long it’s been since she last
saw him. After she tells him that it’s been five years since she last saw him, he disappears
from her doorstep and never says another word to her again.
As he leaves in the car, he ends up getting rammed off the road by Dalton and Tibbs who
immediately start to attack him to bring him in. Dalton attacks him with electrical rounds,
and Tibbs hops onto a bike as he shoots cameras into the sky so he can see.
Here we go. This is what I’ve been waiting for this whole time. When you hear about a
super soldier movie, you don’t just look forward to him mowing through a bunch of regular
grunts. That’s fun to watch and all that, but you want some epic, tense battles. Super
soldier versus super soldier. This isn’t quite that, but we’re getting closer!
After a truck hits Ray and Dalton, Dalton is left with his prosthetic legs shattered,
and Tibbs speeds up just in time to stab Ray with a spike that allows headquarters to reestablish
connection. After they shut Ray down, Emil tells KT to handle Wigans while he goes to
deal with Ray. At first she tries to resist, but when Emil shuts down her prosthetic airway,
she sees that she has no choice but to cooperate.
KT retrieves Wigans, and Ray gets some one on one time with Emil. Ray finds himself in
a neural space with Emil, and he finally gets to question him on how much he really knows
about him. Emil talks to him like he gave him a purpose and a second chance, but Ray
doesn’t see it that way. Just when Ray gets worked up about ending everything, Emil shuts
off the pathway, and they get ready to end the contract.
When KT gets back to the facility, Dalton tells her that they are about to pull out
the Nanites and shut him down. KT decides to tell Emil that she wasn’t able to find
Wigans, and Emil decides to give Ray one last run to track Wigans down. KT hops into the
sim with Ray to break it all down, and we see that she gives Wigans access in the van
in the garage.
This is pure genius. It doesn’t really explain how KT plans to make it out of this alive,
but it’s time for everyone to get ready for the big showdown! I think it’s time
for our hero to take on all of the bad guys in the tower!
Right there with you, Wigans! But even he seems excited for what comes next. Who wouldn’t
be?!
Emil finally breaks into the room that KT is holed up in, and he tries to shut her airways
down again. It turns out that KT actually got Wigans to reprogram her so that he can’t
do that again. As KT’s plan plays out, Ray breaks free of the corporation's control and
goes on his way to exact his real revenge. Emil calls Dalton and Tibbs to arms as a last
resort to deal with Ray, and they suit up to take him down.
Meanwhile, KT burns down the servers that are all programmed for Ray’s Nanites, and
Ray comes face to face with Dalton.
Here we go! Super soldier epic battle! YES!!!!!!
Dalton and Ray fight to the death on the 76th floor until Ray tackles him into the elevator
shaft where Tibbs jumps down to meet them. As the elevator careens down the side of the
high rise, there comes a time that Tibbs and Ray are in danger of falling to their deaths.
Dalton causes Tibbs to fall to his death, but Ray is able to grab hold of Dalton and
pull him down to the ground floor.
When Ray hits the ground, his Nanites start to overload, but he still decides to come
after Emil who is trying to escape in his vehicle. Emil shoots explosive rounds at Ray
until his Nanites run out. Eventually, Emil thinks that he’s won, and he tells Ray that
he’s literally just Ray now.
That’s right! And they all go BOOM!
Soon, we hear KT and Wigans arguing over how long he’s taking to get something going,
and suddenly, Ray opens his eyes again. Wigans takes a sigh of relief once he realizes that
Ray remembers everything, and he explains that he doesn’t have to recharge at all
anymore. When Ray goes out to meet with KT, he sits down to watch the horizon with her,
and he stops her from apologizing for being a part of everything before.
As Ray and KT hop into their jeep, they ride off into the sunset, and the credits roll.
Personally, I had been waiting for this movie to come out ever since the first trailer dropped.
While it might not necessarily be a new or groundbreaking story, the technology is amazing,
and the visuals are just really cool. CGI Vin Diesel on the elevator might look a little
dated, but the amount of times his body got reconstructed with the Nanites is enough to
make me forget about that. Give it a shot!
Thank you for watching, and I hope you enjoyed the video. Don’t forget to like and subscribe
for more like this one. Comment what you think I should watch next, and I’ll see you in
the next video.