Man, this is a good time to be a Samson fan. A Samsonite? The all-powerful being of Biblical myth is the first letter in the acronym SHAZAM, powering up the hero of DC’s upcoming superhero flick. And now he’s got his own cheaply-made movie from the faith-based folks at Pure Flix, who also have graced us with the God’s Not Dead series. This oughta be good.
Par for the course, the film is chock full of flailing celebrities, in this case Rutger Hauer, Lindsay Wagner, Billy Zane (Not you, Billy Zane!!?), and Jackson Rathbone with Taylor James as Samson, God’s chosen champion for Israel whose supernatural strength and quick temper soon leads to battle against the dreaded Philistines! But after he’s betrayed by a foul temptress, who had his hair cut and his eyes gouged out, removing his legendary strength, there is only person Samson can count on to see him through. If you guessed the G-O-D then you’d be right. I mean, dude kills like a thousand Philistines with just the jawbone of a donkey. Better believe he had some help.
I mean, if I’m being honest this looks pretty bad, but no worse than The Legend of Conan or that Hercules movie with Kellan Lutz. They could’ve been made by the same people as far as I know (they weren’t), and James is probably no better or worse than Lutz was. I don’t have any budget details but this looks like the biggest, broadest flick Pure Flix has done, so that’s saying something.
Directed by Bruce MacDonald, Samson gets Biblical on February 16th.
