Superhero stories are ten-a-penny these days and there is nothing that sets SAMARITAN apart from the pack. The background is taken right out of the infinitely superior JOKER, all rubbish-strewn streets, poverty and the underclass just looking for a leader to incite them to rise up in revolution against the forces keeping them in misery. Sylvester Stallone's Joe Smith is a reluctant hero who doesn't want any part of the superhero game following his fateful last battle with his brother. Only his burgeoning friendship with a young fan can bring him back into action against the bad guys. Tried and tested tropes then, but a trope only becomes a trope by being popular enough to be repeated often.

Sylvester Stallone can do careworn any day of the week and the Joe Smith character hardly stretches him, either in the number of lines or depth of acting departments. Still, he is believable enough as the character and that centres the narrative. Javon 'Wanna' Walton just about manages to stay on the right side of annoying, but there could have been a bit more street smartness about him considering that he spends part of his time running with the gang members who later come to threaten him.

It is a truism that a superhero is only as good as his villain and Cyrus is an off-the-peg gang leader with delusions of grandeur. Pilou Asbaek gives him a certain charisma that explains why he's the leader of the gang, but without special powers himself, he is never a true threat to Joe. Only Joe's age and his one weakness (the energy generated by his cells during healing will destroy his heart if he doesn't cool down) give him any sort of advantage at all and so there is no real tension in the outcome. Joe is all but indestructible, shaking off being hit by a car and being riddled with bullets in the final sequence, which again makes the threat minimal.

There is just about enough in the way of action and explosions to get by on and at least the scale of Cyrus's plan gives him supervillain status, but the main drama is over the fate of Sam and that is meant to make it personal and intimate, but only makes it dull and familiar.

SAMARITAN never really has the courage of its conviction. It wants to be gritty and urban, but then throws in a horribly sentimental message about making the right choices. There is one huge twist in the plot, but if you don't see that coming after even ten minutes then you really haven't been paying attention.

Considering what Marvel and DC are doing on the big screen and the likes of Amazon Prime's own THE BOYS is doing on the small, there needs to be something much more original and startling than this to catch and hold the attention. You won't be bored whilst watching it, but you might not remember it all in a few days time..