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There’s an overwhelming sense of deja vu in this competently made but immediately forgettable tale of a superhero forced out of retirementIn Ryan Coogler’s knockout 2015 reboot Creed, OG prizefighter Rocky Balboa was wisely kept outside of the ring for the first time, focusing on something even more terrifying than getting really beat up: getting really old. Sylvester Stallone, whose screen persona had fully devolved into parody by that point with a series of increasingly risible action films, found new depths in the most textured iteration of his most known character, a bruised fighter weathered by the many battles of life. It scored him a much-deserved Oscar nomination and hinted at a late-stage career bloom, one that was less about fists and more about feelings.But such hope was short-lived, the actor returning to roles that required him to shoot first and emote later, and so remains an untapped potential, an action hero who could benefit from transforming into a character actor. In Amazon’s delayed superhero saga Samaritan, one of Stallone’s only non-franchise offerings of late (recent films include The Suicide Squad, Escape Plan 3 and Rambo 5 while next up is The Expendables 4 and Guardians of the Galaxy 3), there’s a brief hint of something more but a brief hint is all it is. It’s gone before you know it, replaced with more of the same. Something similar could be said of the film itself, a setup that suggests a left turn but instead takes us down a very familiar road, right down the middle. Continue reading...