“Samaritan”: Sylvester Stallone became a retired Superman

Earlier this week, Samaritan, the long-awaited film about a retired superhero starring Sylvester Stallone, premiered. We tell how a modest picture by Julius Avery is experimenting with a genre that has long been hated, whether Stallone managed to fit into the role of the almighty Samaritan at his 76 years old, and what the audience writes about this story.

Samaritan is a new twist on the superhero genre from Australian director Julius Avery. Previously, the author has already managed to earn a name for himself in the industry thanks to prizes from Sundance and the Cannes Film Festival, as well as the thrash film Overlord, which, although it did not find much love among critics, has become almost a cult in horror circles.

This story is completely original, meaning not based on any comics. It revolves around the strongest superhero in the world, nicknamed Samaritan. When the hero was still very young, he and his parents and brother tried to build a life in a disadvantaged area of ​​the criminal capital of the United States, Granite City. Both children had phenomenal strength from birth, so many neighbors disliked the family, seeing them as only fiends.

One day, an angry mob broke into their house and killed their parents. The boys took the tragedy very differently: the first decided that he would not allow this to happen to someone else, and became the superhero Samaritan, and the second took the path of revenge and turned into the villain Nemesis. For many years, the brothers fought among themselves for the fate of the city, until finally both died in a mortal battle.

20 years have passed. People are still theorizing about what really happened on that ill-fated day of Samaritan’s death. Young superhero fan Sam is convinced that the strongest man on Earth did not die at all, but secretly retired to live his life in peace. Meanwhile, crime in Granite City is gaining momentum, the bandits feel absolutely unpunished. In the neighborhood with Sam settles a mysterious elderly thug named Joe. The boy immediately begins to notice the similarities between the grumpy old man and his dead idol.

This tape can be attributed to the so-called “B” films, that is, low-budget entertainment films. Such films are watched not for artistic value, or even more so for the huge scope of action, which most often does not happen there, but for a deliberately ridiculous, funny plot and a pure flight of director’s imagination, which is revealed in the absence of big money and studio control. And in the case of “Samaritan” it is easy to guess that the main reason to watch the film will be the leading actor.

Actors of the film “Samaritan”

Sylvester Stallone, the star of dozens of classic films, an action legend and the idol of several generations of viewers, was invited to play the role of a retired superhero. For Stallone, “Samaritan” was the first full-fledged acting experience in a superhero movie, although he had previously appeared in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy 2, but, by and large, that role can only be called a small cameo. Although 76-year-old Sylvester may seem a bit old to wear a hero costume, Julius Avery is confident that he will still be able to surprise many: “At the time of filming he was 73 years old, but on set I was simply amazed what a professional he is. He could be any age, but I’m telling you, most young guys in their 20s and 30s wouldn’t be able to play the part half as badly as Stallone.”

Stallone himself, who has always been skeptical of superheroics, believes that the film stands out from other representatives of the genre primarily due to realism: “My hero is not immortal and not omnipotent, so he relies heavily on his exceptional restraint. This makes Samaritan much more realistic than popular superhero franchises, especially since we tried to use special effects as little as possible.”

Other than that, the movie doesn’t have much to offer. The boy Sam was played by 16-year-old actor Javon Walton, whom viewers could see in the TV series “Euphoria”, the main villain of the story was embodied on the screen by Danish actor Johan Philip Asbek, who previously starred in the TV series “Government” and the film “1864”. Also in supporting roles you can see Martin Starr, who everyone should remember for his role as a school teacher from the Marvel trilogy about Spider-Man and the comedy show Silicon Valley.

Viewer reviews

The audience, for the most part, reacted positively to the film, however, some viewers were still a little disappointed, because more was expected from the film than it ultimately could offer. Most of the commentators confirmed that Sylvester Stallone became the main decoration of the film, showing on the screen his classic image of a wise and brutal hero, which he has been using since the action movies of the 80s. Also, the authors of the reviews appreciated the pleasant atmosphere of the picture and a good attempt to take a fresh look at the somewhat stagnant superhero genre.

The cons of the project, the audience attributed the overly predictable plot and mediocre secondary characters. The final can be predicted from the very first frames, and the creators clearly did not even try to do something original in the script field. And the fact that, apart from Stallone, there is essentially no one to watch in the film, only reinforces the impression of secondary viewing.