Trailer for Samaritan: Sylvester Stallone’s superhero movie will be released August 26 on Prime Video

Samaritan, a new superhero movie starring Sylvester Stallone, now has an official trailer. Amazon Prime Video dropped the video ahead of its global release on the platform on August 26. The film was originally slated to hit theaters in 2020, but was delayed several times due to various studio acquisitions. Samaritan was presented as a take on what happens to superheroes when they’ve passed their prime – using a grounded approach similar to M. Night Shayamalan’s Unbreakable film trilogy.

Set in the fictional Granite City, overrun with crime and towering gray skyscrapers, the Samaritan trailer begins by introducing our hero. Joe Smith (Stallone), a retired superhero, spends his days picking up broken gadgets from trash cans and giving them new life – his hobby. This quiet routine is soon interrupted when he meets 13-year-old Sam Cleary (Javon Walton), who suspects his neighbor is actually town legend Samaritan.

Flashback footage reveals that Samaritan was pronounced dead in a fiery warehouse battle with his rival, Nemesis, 25 years ago. Cleary’s suspicions come true when old Smith single-handedly saves him from a group of bullies and survives a car accident. As for powers, he seems to have super strength and the ability to regenerate, though that never explains the scars on his back from the fire. The Samaritan trailer has an overall blandness, ranging from themes, names (Joe and Sam), and the character of Stallone, who attempts to recapture the magic of Unbreakable.

Walton sounds interesting, playing an innocent kid who’s super invested in uncovering the mystery surrounding his new superhero friend – a far cry from his role in Euphoria. “Things start to fall apart when you stop caring. And I stopped caring a long time ago,” Stallone says, while explaining his story to Cleary. We are then introduced to the new villain, Cyrus, played by Pilou Asbæk, who leads a band of bandits determined to figure out the reason for Samaritan’s long absence.

Samaritan’s half-baked plot expects us to believe that a group of ordinary humans would provide a great match for Samaritan, who is virtually invincible in the fight scenes shown in the Samaritan trailer. The film is based on a graphic novel of the same name by Marc Olivent, Renzo Podesta and Bragi F Schut – the last of which turned it into a screenplay.

Julius Avery is the director of Samaritan, best known for his 2014 film with Ewan McGregor, Son of a Gun. The film also stars Martin Starr (Spider-Man: Far From Home) as Arthur, Dascha Polanco as Isabelle, Moisés Arias as Reza Smith, Natacha Karam and Jared Odrick.

Samaritan will be available to stream exclusively on Amazon Prime Video on August 26.

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