'Smartian' review

 

The "Samaritan" banner for Prime Video says, "25 years ago, the world's greatest superhero vanished." Sam's (Javon 'Wanna' Walton) opening monologue offers us the Cliffs Notes summary of what he did. Nemesis was the twin brother of Samaritan, Samaritan's adversary. According to Sam, when they were young "they were freakishly strong," and the Granite City people were frightened by their inability to manage their might. Therefore, the neighbourhood set fire to their home and padlocked their family inside. The mutant twins survived the fire, but their parents perished. In the same city where its inhabitants burned his parents to death, Samaritan grew up to fight crime, but Nemesis' justifiable resentment turned him into a villain. Nemesis, realising that his brother was now the enemy, turned all of his hatred for him into a massive hammer, Samaritan's Kryptonite, and...

I'm not making this up, and I am indeed sober as I write this review. I haven't even gotten to the point where a power plant explosion ends up killing both brothers, breaking up their sibling rivalry. The opening credits include a lot of information. I must commend both the animators who brought Bragi F. Schut's screenplay to life and Walton for his enthusiastic reading of these specifics. Just loud and intrusive enough to almost persuade you that this overblown origin story should be taken seriously is the bombastic score by Kevin Kiner and Jed Kurzel. Although it is said that both characters die and take down the power grid with them, Sam expresses his belief that the Samaritan is still alive.

Why does Sam think this is true? The movie doesn't provide an explanation and doesn't explore the conspiracy hypothesis put forth in "Samaritan Lives" by author Albert Casler (Martin Starr). Sam keeps going to Albert whenever he sees an elderly person exert even the slightest amount of strength, only to be repeatedly proven wrong. Sam paints his insignia on dumpsters and writes about Samaritan's exploits in sketchbooks. Even his closet door has one of those walls from conspiracy movies, although his does not. This neurotic 40-year-old man is imprisoned in the body of a 13-year-old.

Granite City itself is even more absurd. It resembles the descriptions of cities Fox News employs to frighten its viewers since it is covered with graffiti and has abandoned lots and lanes. You almost expect Austin Butler's portrayal of Elvis from that Baz Luhrmann film to transfer from pay-per-view to Amazon so he may sing "In the Ghetto" while strolling down the street. Sam steals little amounts of money from teens who work for the sinister Cyrus in this area, which is also rife with crime (Pilou Asbaek). One of these kids had tattoos all over his body and rainbow-colored braids. His extreme evil makes him seem like a carryover from "Robocop 2." Cyrus feels the same way about Samaritan as Sam does about Nemesis, to the point where he wants to imitate him and obliterate Granite City.

As for Samaritan, a garbage man named Joe who lives next door to Sam might be the genuine article. You can tell he's not your typical trash collector because he's portrayed by a gray-bearded Sylvester Stallone. When Joe beats up the aforementioned teenagers after they turn against Sam, suspicion is raised. Sam gets into Joe's home and discovers a scrapbook full of news articles about Samaritan, which raises even more questions. Then, of course, there is the trailer scene where Joe is struck by a car driven by the people he just beat up and his body miraculously mends itself.

The screenplay for "Samaritan" has so many gaps that the movie needs to move more quickly than it does to avoid them. Julius Avery, the director, lavishes the screen with blood and gore, but even that starts to seem stale after a while. For instance, if Samaritan was well-known around the world and everyone was aware of his abilities, why do so many people persist punching or shooting at him? What's up with the bad guys' power-zapping grenades, too? They supposedly generate enormous explosions, however in one occasion, a character sets one off without throwing it, and it misses him. The film is so engrossed in itself that it loses track of its own weaponry.

In "Judge Dredd," which came out twenty-seven years ago, Sylvester Stallone portrayed a similar kind of superhero. Now, unlike many other people, I didn't find that movie to be as horrible. I found it amusing that Stallone was determined to portray the part without any comedy and that he kept shouting, "I am the LAW!" And "Judge Dredd" was decent enough to be given a R rating. "Samaritan" is incredibly bloodless and brutal so that it can obtain the cynically assigned PG-13 rating. People are shot with automatic weapons, pounded by a man whose strength should make them explode, and smashed in the head with enormous sledgehammers. Additionally, Stallone escapes a burning, falling structure, just like he did in the much better "Expendables 3."