The Stream: Too obvious of a twist, a little light on the action

The Big Screen: Original superhero story and okay fights

The Final Bill: An original story dulled by obvious execution and not enough action

– S2S: Movie Review
Director: Julius Avery
Writers: Bragi F. Schut
Stars: Sylvester Stallone, Javon ‘Wanna’ Walton, Pilou Asbæk
Genre: Action, Drama, Fantasy
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 1 hour 35 minutes
Production Companies: Balboa Productions, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
Platform: Amazon Prime Released August 26, 2022
Coming Soon: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Goodnight Mommy, Ambulance, My Best Friend’s Exorcism

What do you get when a good Samaritan meets his Nemesis? I don’t know, but Rocky told that to Apollo Creed and that’s what started the first fight. Welcome back, Streamers! This weekend we were able to watch Prime Video’s release of Samaritan. The movie follows a teen Sam (played by Javon “Wanna” Walton) who suspects that his mysterious neighbor Mr. Smith (played by Sylvester Stallone) is actually a former superhero hiding plain sight. As the tale goes, about two decades ago the greatest hero, Samaritan, and villain, Nemesis- not creative, also maybe twins (?), had the biggest battle of their careers. At the end of the battle, a huge explosion was reported to have killed both, but many believers thought that Samaritan was still alive. With crime on the rise in the city, everyone is still looking for Samaritan to reappear. Sam makes it his business to make his guess come true. Let’s see if this gets the parable treatment

Now, you may think I went into too much detail about the plot, but the origin story in the beginning of the movie was the best part. Let’s be honest, the names of characters can’t be more boring. The good Samaritan and his Nemesis. Really? Can we get duller? Anyway, the story about them being twins and going opposite ways and then a weapon was forged for an epic battle. It is pretty good. Reminds us of that whole Cain and Abel situation. However, what follows is basically every movie about a superhero in hiding. I can’t even say the action sequences were even that inspiring or shocking. Towards the end, Stallone does put on a bit of a show but even that’s pretty short-lived. Speaking of Stallone, he was okay in this as a whole. You could really see him trying to portray the feelings, restraint, and annoyance that this character may have had dealing with due to this kid and his past. Speaking of annoying, our little buddy in this film was just that. Wanna Walton, while on purpose, was annoying, nosy, and fit the role well. The only other character of note was the new age Nemesis, and this movie did it’s best to give us a Bane monologue for this guy. That’s literally all I can say of note for his character, otherwise just the normal gang leader who wants more power. Seen it a million times.

Long story short, this parable isn’t a bad watch just there’s no rush to watch. Samaritan totes an original story but lacks some original execution overall. The elder statesmen Stallone gives the character a pretty good go as a “retired” or superhero in hiding. There are some okay fight scenes here and there but not enough to really make the movie pop off your streaming lists. Grab a handful of popcorn, be a good Samaritan yourself and if you find some time during a lull in your afternoon turn on this Prime Video streamer.