Brief Story Line
Years ago in Granite city, a person with superhuman strength nicknamed Samaritan was presumed dead after a fierce battle with the villain Nemesis. In the present day, a young boy named Sam Cleary (Javon Walton - The Addams Family 2, Utopia TV series etc) who lived with his mother Tiffany (Dascha Polanco - Orange is the New Black TV series etc) and was a big fan of Samaritan, suspected that his neighbor Joe (Sylvester Stallone - Rambo: Last Blood, Escape Plan 2: Hades etc) was actually the beloved superhero.
Meanwhile, Sam also tried to help his mother by doing odd jobs with small time gang member Reza (Moisés Arias - Five Feet Apart etc). Unfortunately Reza's boss Cyrus (Pilou Asbæk - Ghost in the Shell, Outside the Wire etc) had a deviant plan and Sam was somehow caught in the crossfire.
So what would happen to Sam and was Joe really Samaritan? You can find them all in this movie.
End of Brief Story Line
At first I thought that this movie would be a powerful drama about superhero as some people were comparing it with Stallone's early Rocky films. And while the opening sequence was interesting, but when the focus seemed to be on the young Sam's life, I felt my early thoughts were correct as the movie looked to be more of drama about finding the superhero and how the boy convinced him to return to action. But it turned out that the action was quite abundant especially mid way through and it really did not disappoint.
I was surprised to see that the action sequence was well executed and despite there were some CGI used, they were done pretty smoothly that I did not really notice them. They were not as obvious as other movies and did not look too cheap, which was quite surprising as I did not think this would be having huge budget. Now I might not have been paying too much attention during the opening/closing credits cause I was not aware that the film was based on graphic novels of the same title by Bragi F. Schut, Marc Olivent and Renzo Podesta published by Mithos comics. Btw, this movie was directed by Julius Avery (previous work included the quite well received Overlord) and written by Schut himself.
The movie's tone was dark and it had few brief dark humor as well. I personally was quite entertained by the action and the story. Although the villain's back story seemed to be underdeveloped and made him not that interesting and did not seem to be a powerful match for the hero. Even the surprise revelation did not really shock me as somehow I already felt it from the beginning. Nevertheless, as a superhero drama movie, this one was still enjoyable for me. It did not feel too long for a duration of 101 minutes without any mid or post end credit scene.
So if you are looking for a pretty interesting superhero drama movie and you want to see some entertaining enough action starring Sylvester Stallone, then this one should be to your liking. But do not expect this to be of the high standard set by the Marvel Cinematic Universe or the DC comics adaptations. As long as you are in it for the action and a little bit drama, then you should be fine.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
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