And Mr. Stallone’s Rocky is back once again, playing a central role in Adonis’s coming of age, both as a boxer and a man. As I grew older, I have come to realize that the Rocky franchise are more than just a boxing film; it’s an underdog story that is relatable to every person in the world. With some trepidation – Rocky, after all, is his baby, the thing he’s known best for in his career – he agreed to sign on to “Creed”.
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Donnie (the superb Michael B. Jordan) tracks down Rocky Balboa (Stallone), his father’s former ring rival and closest friend. This is not the Rocky who is in training, or who wonders whether he should get back in the ring for one more round.
“I Guess What I’m Trying to Say, Is That if I Can Change, and You Can Change, Everybody Can Change!”.
In 1976, moviegoers were captivated by Rocky, the story of a small-time boxer from Philadelphia who gets chance to fight the heavyweight champion, Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers).
Creator and star Sylvester Stallone gave the iconic character a great sendoff, by reminding the viewer’s why “Rocky” was so beloved. His performance as Adonis Johnson-Creed is endearing and frustrating and you find yourself cheering for his character. He runs a restaurant and visits the cemetery, plodding along in life while inhabiting a character that is the antithesis of the musclebound meathead of the later “Rocky” films (and “The Expendables”).
I experienced much more enthusiastic joy in a screening of the seventh entry in the “Rocky” series – and the first to take a spin-off turn. In “Part 1”, I was critical of the producers’ choice to follow the trend of treating movies like segmented television drama.
Interesting thing happens when it comes to boxing and movies. Despite the original film and the first sequel being excellent character studies, first of the despair of poverty and oblivion and then of the fright of losing it all, the franchise became a joke (note: I did not see the last film in the series, Rocky Balboa).
From his first meeting with Stallone, the older actor began showing Jordan the ropes, not unlike Rocky with the young Creed. He helped the actor avoid the kind of slip-ups that make moviegoers cringe, learning not to “oversell a punch, not taking the punch too soon, taking a long time, especially when you do slo-mo shots”.
Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) trains Adonis Johnson (Michael B. Jordan) in Ryan Coogler’s “Creed”. “His portrayal of Rocky Balboa as an old, exhausted man, who has been beaten into some true wisdom, is heartfelt but in no way corny”. “But right now, what do I gotta go out for?” “It’s really a wild-card year at this point, with no solid frontrunner and a strong desire from a lot of people to see more variety in the Oscar contenders”. There are three of them, all shot in dramatically different styles in terms of scale, feel and lighting. You were probably curious about this one anyway, but let us tell you, it is a powerful effort highlighted by supporting performances from Phylicia Rashad and Tessa Thompson that is one of the year’s best.
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As a die-hard “Rocky” fan, Coogler sprinkled “Creed” with loving homages to the earlier films, but nothing could replace having Stallone on the set.
