STALLONE is a Good, but not a Great SAMARITAN!

Published: August 26, 2022, 5:52 PM CST by HouseOfMacleod

Hello movie buffs and welcome to the House of Macleod movie review corner! Today we take a look at Julius Avery's SAMARITAN (2022 PG-13 1h 42m) starring Sylvester Stallone, Javon Walton, Pilou Asbæk, Dascha Polanco and Moises Arias. I'll be 1000% honest with you guys and gals, when I saw the trailer for this I wasn't looking forward to it. Its promotional material made it look like another run-of-the-mill superhero movie trying to cash in on DC or the MCU. I couldn't have been more wrong and was surprised to learn that SAMARITAN has a better story and feel than either company has released recently. You see, I forgot one major element: Stallone. Sylvester Stallone is a man who knows a good story when he reads one and if you don't believe me go see ROCKY (1976) or FIRST BLOOD (1982). SAMARITAN is no different. Don't get me wrong, this movie isn't going to win any Oscars anytime soon, but it has that heart, that gritty, ground-level urban feel that has worked so well for the ROCKY movies. The story picks up with a teenager named Sam (Walton) who lives in a brutal, criminal town called Granite City. He remembers a better time when the city was protected by a superhero called, you guessed it, Samaritan. One day, Samaritan engages in a final battle with his nemesis, a villain called "Nemesis" and seemingly perishes trying to stop him. Not giving up hope, Sam believes Samaritan is still alive and sets out to find him, eventually suspecting one of his neighbors, an older man named Joe (Stallone), of being the titular hero.

As I said earlier in this review, Samaritan won't win any awards, but what it will do is give you just over an hour and a half of solid cinematic action, story decent with some surprising twists and a few likable characters to boot. I liked SAMARITAN because it is not connected to any shared universe. It's not tied to any other movies, and I didn't need to have any prior knowledge of any of the characters to watch it. It's a fun and engaging tale that's both heartfelt and endearing. As you know I like to be fair with my reviews and I will say this there are things that could have been better like very poor quality aging CGI and longer runtime to flesh out the characters. It's not LOGAN, but it was very nice for what it's trying to represent. Julius Avery does a great job with his actors, especially Javon Walton as kid Sam. shade for it and Pilou Asbæk devours the landscape as the main villain, Cyrus. SAMARITAN is what Stallone movies do best, they entertain without using too much brain power and you can't blame him considering he exists in a world where the modern superhero movie takes itself so seriously .

SAMARITAN is available to stream starting today, Friday, August 26 on Amazon Prime Video.

Official House of Macleod score: 7/10 Good story, no Oscars.