It’s out today and well worth your time during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. “Creed” has plenty of the original Rocky color and feel.
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“Creed”, a spiritual successor to Sylvester Stallone’s award-winning film “Rocky”, casts him in the same role that catapulted him to fame. Donnie, played by Michael B. Jordan, can’t shake a restless urge to box. I’m sure you can find it on-demand if you’re doing marathon before seeing Creed.
In “Fruitvale Station”, Coogler demonstrated his ability to turn a two-dimensional film into a realistic three-dimensional environment (no glasses needed, thank you), re-creating a tragic, real-life story, anchored by Jordan’s otherworldly, searing performance.
Yet, he was nominated for best actor and for best screenplay when the movie was released.
Stallone was “very involved in the process”, Jordan said, not only as a producer on Creed, but also because of his onscreen fight experience. It’s to his credit that though he is overshadowed by the screen time dedicated to Michael Jordan’s journey of discovery and his love life, he still is the one who manages to draw all the cheers in the theatre. But watch him in that last fight, carrying himself with arrogance and taunting facial expressions- it’s delightful, and seems to owe more to the pro wrestling heel tradition than anything in boxing. At least that was the case in the theater I saw it in. The Rocky persona tended to dip into self-parody in later entries, but here Stallone has found the soul of the character again. For the “Rocky” franchise, however, time has yet to make that knock-out move.
Creed is not only a great movie, it’s one of the year’s best.
The opening scene of “Rocky” takes place on November 25, 1975. A modern-day underdog story, Creed is a reminder of how strong the human spirit can be when we have something to fight for.
Adonis Johnson (Jordan) never knew his famous father, world heavyweight champion Apollo Creed, who died before he was born. This is the first of the films that is not written and / or directed by Sylvester Stallone.
Creed may have a few flaws, but, not unlike that boxer who kicked this off all those years ago, it’s got more heart than you could even imagine. It’s an exercise in passing the torch with plenty of cross-generational appeal. That’s why Rocky told Adrian: “All I wanna do is go the distance”.
The added drama isn’t enough to ruin the movie, but it was enough to notice. He’s in many ways a darker and less idealistic figure than the original Rocky. “Creed” does the same thing, but it’s a bit too familiar. He saves his explosions for the ring and, more quietly, a final acknowledgement that is both stunning and obvious, but you don’t realize it’s the latter until he has said it. His final, epic match against champ “Pretty” Ricky Conlan (real-life fighter Tony Bellew), who is on his way to prison, hits all the right notes and, in its way, brings the story full circle.
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Despite its predictable outcomes and overused clichs it was hard not to like “Creed”. “Sometimes I found myself cheering for Apollo because that was what I related to”, he shared.
