Well … at least this Sylvester Stallone project is age-appropriate.
Director Julius Avery’s fitfully entertaining urban drama is an inner-city spin on the superhero genre, although Bragi F. Schut’s script is far better suited to the graphic novel format that preceded this film by almost a decade.
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| To the exasperated frustration of Joe (Sylvester Stallone, right), young Sam (Javon "Wanna" Walton, left) is convinced that his grizzled neighbor actually is a former superhero, now living incognito. |
At its core, this story echoes the famous line from John Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
As explained in a comic book-style flashback that introduces this film, Granite City once hosted a pair of supers: the virtuous Samaritan and his equally powered villainous rival, Nemesis. Their ongoing skirmishes climaxed in an epic battle 25 years ago, which claimed both their lives.
Since then, much of Granite City has become a crime-infested slum burdened by the disenfranchised and helpless homeless, overrun with greed and corruption, and ruled by roving gangs of criminal thugs.
Cinematographer David Ungaro and production designers Greg Berry and Christopher Glass certainly make everything look gritty and grimy.
Thirteen-year-old Sam Cleary (Javon “Wanna” Walton), thoroughly absorbed by the legend of Samaritan, has clung to the notion that — somehow — his hero actually survived that clash. This obsession has prompted him to mistakenly assume “superhuman qualities” in a long list of ordinary citizens, much to the annoyance of bookstore owner/journalist Albert Casler (Martin Starr), who has long investigated what actually is known about their city’s former supers.
Sam’s fixation also is a burden on his mother, Tiffany (Dascha Polanco), a single parent just barely making ends meet. Indeed, she often doesn’t make them meet, which prompts Sam — against his better judgment — to accept some easy money from local gang lord Cyrus (the hissably evil Pilou Asbæk, well remembered as the similarly vile Euron Greyjoy, in Game of Thrones).
Asbæk is totally terrifying, particularly when — with eyes widened and bulging to an almost impossible degree — he leans into somebody else’s face, either with quiet menace or enraged explosions of temper.
Sam also has been paying attention to Joe (Stallone), a reclusive garbage collector who repairs broken appliances in an apartment across the street from the boy’s bedroom window. Sam’s curiosity is further piqued when Joe rescues the boy from a beating by a trio of teenage thugs led by Reza (Moises Arias, memorably nasty); the older man handles the punks with eyebrow-lifting ease.
Joe rebuffs the boy’s excited curiosity for a time, but a subsequent incident removes all doubt; the older man definitely is an enhanced being.
Their slowly developing relationship is this film’s strongest suit; Stallone’s laid-back, laconic temperament and weary, long-suffering expressions are balanced nicely by young Walton’s golly-gee-whiz enthusiasm. Most crucially, Sam acts his age; he isn’t insufferably smart or amazingly talented in any particular way. He’s just a kid, and — as the story proceeds — he makes several more kid-level mistakes.
Cyrus has his own supportive “family,” headed by his seductively lethal and fiercely loyal girlfriend, Sil (Sophia Tatum, oozing menace) and formidable right-hand man Farshad (former Miami Dolphins defensive end Jared Odrick).
Cyrus has long worshipped the memory of Nemesis, the way Sam idolizes Samaritan, and plans to finish what the super-villain attempted, lo those many years ago: to reduce the city to full anarchy by destroying the entire power grid with a series of EMP bombs. Cyrus begins this campaign by donning Nemesis’ former helmet, and encouraging his growing rabble of followers to wear cloth masks in its likeness.
At which point, savvy viewers will think Wait … haven’t we seen this plotline before, in 2019’s Joker?
Indeed yes. And although Schut can correctly argue that his graphic novel came out years before that film, repeating it on-screen now is a lamentable case of been there, done that.
That’s the first problem. A much bigger issue emerges when Joe explains that expending his powers prompts his body to overheat uncontrollably; if he then doesn’t immediately cool down — via a cold shower, or by eating a gallon of ice cream — his heart will explode. Fair enough, and Sam sees Joe’s body go into such overload following the aforementioned “subsequent incident,” which lasts only a few seconds.
Yet in this film’s violent climax, Joe endures repeated punishment that goes on for 10, 15 minutes … but doesn’t go into overload shock. Story continuity is thrown under the bus, in favor of allowing Stallone to whup-ass during an extended action sequence: contrived Hollywood nonsense.
Even worse, the film concludes with the glaring issue of mob-driven street anarchy totally unresolved. This is supposed to be satisfying?
Matters also aren't helped by Kevin Kiner and Jed Kurzel's monotonous, excessively loud thump-thump-thump synth (so-called) score, which is thoroughly obnoxious.
Schut does deserve credit for a mildly clever third-act plot twist, but it’s telegraphed throughout the entire film, and probably won’t surprise many viewers.
Actually, nothing about this film is surprising, or innovative; it’s a ho-hum, by-the-numbers urban crime drama with clumsily superimposed superhero trappings. No wonder its release was delayed four times during the past several years, and it certainly won’t make much of a splash with this streaming debut.
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