Pixar Animation Studios has been one of Disney’s most successful subsidiaries, with every one of their releases, from Toy Story to Inside Out, becoming a hit. “Creed” adds a lot of new characters within a mostly familiar setting. Unfortunately for Adonis, no one in L.A. respects him and he’s too cocky to get the training he needs to become a better fighter. (If you’re still keeping track, by the way, “Creed” is the franchise’s seventh entry.) Adonis never met his dad, but Creed’s wife, Mary Anne (Phylicia Rashad), plucked him from foster care when he was a boy and raised him in the lap of luxury.
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Of course, Rocky does agree to train Adonis, and though he doesn’t send his protege to the meat locker to pound on frozen carcasses, he gets him to wake up before the wintry dawn and run all over town – the Ninth Street Market, Front Street in Kensington, along the Schuylkill, the Art Museum – and spar relentlessly in the ring. Everyone is well versed in the training montages that takes place in these movies. Flash forward, and “Donny” Johnson (now played by Jordan) is taking fights in Tijuana and turning down a promising career in finance in favor of chasing his boxing dreams to Philadelphia. It also succeeds at the smart self-awareness that “Jurassic World” attempted this past summer. He’s a man who is trying to make his own name and not be, “the son of Apollo Creed”. Yet it’s a paradise of references.
In terms of filming, Coogler announces himself an effective innovator in one of the first fight scenes. The beauty of “Creed” is that you can walk into it with little knowledge of the Italian Stallion and still leave with tears in your eyes. Will he earn his father’s legacy, or will Adonis turn out to be a “false Creed”? Written by Ryan Coogler and Aaron Covington.
Coogler and Jordan teamed for the excellent fact-based drama “Fruitvale Station” and Coogler’s astutely judged camera sense serves him very well with this material.
It was Coogler’s revised take on the story Stallone couldn’t resist after they met just before the writer and director was about to shoot his Fruitvale Station debut. “So I kind of felt that same anxious nervousness walking on set on Creed like I did back then”. This is everything we could have hoped for from a Rocky spinoff and more. He knows it’s a tough fight, so Johnson tracks down Rocky, now running Adrian’s restaurant in suburban Philadelphia.
Creed explores a new chapter in the Rocky story, a sequel that also serves as a spin-off, re-envisioning the ultimate underdog story for a new generation.
For instance, Scott offers the “Spoiler Alert” that there are no “epic guitar solos played on a mountaintop” in the film, and “at no point does Creed sing on a steep cliff” – something that the singer claims his band does best. Coogler shows impressive versatility in his move to a big-name action franchise, but says he kept in mind the humble persona in which Stallone’s sometimes superhuman Rocky was always grounded. “Creed” is here to prove that the movies can still bring force (pun intended).
If you’ve heard that Stallone gives a performance worthy of an Academy Award nomination in this film, get ready: It’s true.
Cast: Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson.
It does this remarkable deed by paying homage to the original Rocky movie from 1976, as well as the early sequels.
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Like “Rocky”, “Creed” is not as phony or blustery as the recent effort “Southpaw”, and it does not make the mistake of making his opponent a villain. Will it live up to expectations of all “Rocky” fans?
