As for Samaritan, Sam’s next door neighbor, a garbage man named Joe, might be the real deal. He’s played by a gray-bearded Sylvester Stallone, so you know he’s no regular trash hauler. Joe arouses suspicion when he beats up the aforementioned teenagers after they turn against Sam. Even further arousals of suspicion occur when Sam breaks into Joe’s house and finds a scrapbook filled with newspaper clips about Samaritan. Then, of course, there’s the scene in the trailer where Joe gets smashed to bits by a car driven by the folks he just beat up, and his body fixes itself.
There are so many holes in “Samaritan”’s screenplay that the movie needs to move faster than it does if it is to outrun them. Director Julius Avery throws lots of carnage on the screen, but even that becomes so repetitive that the mind wanders back to asking questions. Like, if Samaritan was world-renown and everyone knew his powers, how come dozens of people keep shooting at him or trying to punch him out? And what is the deal with the power-zapping grenades the bad guys use? Apparently, they cause massive explosions, but in one instance, a character detonates one without throwing it and doesn’t blow him up. The movie is so bored with itself that it can’t keep its own weapons straight.
Twenty-seven years ago, Sylvester Stallone played a similar type superhero in “Judge Dredd.” Now, I didn’t think that movie was as bad as many people did. I found some amusement in Stallone’s commitment to playing the role in a completely humorless fashion, and in him repeatedly screaming “I am the LAW!” Plus, “Judge Dredd” had the decency to be rated R. “Samaritan” is extremely violent and even more bloodless so that it can get the cynically applied PG-13. People get hit in the head with giant sledgehammers, shot with automatic weapons, and punched by a man whose strength should make them explode. There’s also Stallone outrunning a burning, collapsing building, something he did already in the much more enjoyable “Expendables 3.”