“If I fight, you fight.”
Directed by: Ryan Coogler
Written by: Ryan Coogler, Aaron Covington
Starring: Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson, Phylicia Rashad
The H-Bomb: Back when he was a wee little lad, Adonis Johnson (Alex Henderson) was constantly being placed in various juvenile facilities for fighting. One day, after his latest scrap landed him in hot water, he’s visited by a middle-aged lady named Mary Anne Creed (Phylicia Rashad), who informs him that her late husband, boxing legend Apollo Creed, is his biological father. Even though Adonis is the product of one of Apollo’s extramarital affairs, Mrs. Creed still feels a responsibility towards the boy, and takes him in.
Cut to many years later, Adonis is all grown up (and now portrayed by Michael B. Jordan) and has a yearning to follow in his father’s footsteps. He’s already built up a perfect fight record in Mexico, and sensing that it’s now or never, he quits his office job in order to pursue a career as a pro fighter. Trouble is, no trainer in his hometown of Los Angeles will take him on, because boxing in Mexico is, to them, about on par with barroom brawling.
So, Adonis makes a trip out east to the great city of Philadelphia, home of his father’s best friend and greatest rival, Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone). Rocky now owns and operates an Italian restaurant, and is long retired from the boxing scene. Nevertheless, Adonis looks Rocky up, and after some persuading, convinces Rocky to train him. The kid proves himself to be a natural talent, as he and Rocky start to bond over the course of his training.
Thing is, no one in Philly, aside from Rocky, knows that Adonis is Apollo Creed’s son, and Adonis would rather it stay that way, as he has no interest in cashing in on his famous name. Still, it’s bound to get out sooner or later, and when it does, it will most certainly open doors for Adonis. One of those doors could even be a title shot. On the downside, once it’s revealed who his daddy is, it will be extremely difficult for Adonis to ever get out from under his shadow.
The original Rocky, an underdog story that was written by Stallone and went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1977, is the seminal boxing movie. It’s the one that set the template that pretty much every boxing movie has followed since. Even the sequels, all of which Stallone also wrote (and sometimes directed), stuck to the formula with religious conviction. As the series wore on, the films became sillier, less believable, and less inspirational, to the point where it transformed into both a pale imitation, and a parody, of its former self. 2006’s Rocky Balboa has its fans, but I found it ridiculously contrived, and the notion that a 60-year-old can step into the ring with the current heavyweight champion, and actually go the distance, isn’t just absurd, it’s science fiction.
Now, we arrive at Creed, a new installment in the Rocky series, that is neither written nor directed by Stallone, but by Fruitvale Station director Ryan Coogler, along with co-writer Aaron Covington. These two are fairly new to the scene, and as it happens, a new creative team was exactly what this franchise needed, because Creed is one rousing and thunderously entertaining sports drama that is far and away the best Rocky film since the original. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, nor does it stray from the formula. It follows the boxing movie structure to the letter, and most who see it will be able to guess how it ends. But, when a film executes a formula as well as this one does, then it doesn’t really matter. An audience doesn’t need to be surprised by a movie like this, they just need to care. Creed will make them care.
While the earlier Rocky sequels were contrived, hokey, and at times just plain cheesy, this one is set firmly in the real world, with flesh and blood characters we can relate to. As the younger Creed, Jordan is an absolute revelation. Sure, he was fine in Chronicle and the aforementioned Fruitvale Station, but here, as a determined young fighter with everything to prove, he delivers a star-making performance. He has presence, he has charisma, and damn does he set the screen ablaze. At first, Adonis, comes off as a bitter, arrogant dick, with some serious (but understandable) daddy issues. However, as his character grows in the film, he grows on us, we warm up to him, and by the time the big fight comes (yep, there is a big fight), we are 100 percent in his corner. Seriously, the folks I saw it with were cheering like they were at an actual boxing event.
Putting in an equally impressive turn is Stallone as the aging Balboa. Initially, featuring Rocky in the story seemed like cause for concern, because Stallone did not write it, and there was a strong chance another writer would fuck it up. That’s why many sequels don’t work, because the new writers don’t understand the characters the original writer created, and they fuck it up. Not the case here. This old, weathered Rocky that Coogler and Covington have written is very much the same man we met in 1976. A man who has endured all the events of the past six movies, and is now in the twilight of his life. Stallone plays him with quiet dignity and a slightly self-deprecating sense of humor, delivering what is his best performance in the whole series.
As great as Jordan and Stallone are individually, it’s during their scenes together that Creed really comes to life. Things get off to a tense and awkward start between them, which is to be expected, however, they play off each other so well, their chemistry is so terrific, that by the time the film reaches its poignant finale, the father/son relationship is totally believable. Even when the whole Rocky-is-sick subplot is introduced (this is in the trailer, not spoiling a thing), it doesn’t come off as melodramatic or cheaply manipulative, because their relationship is so genuine. As cliched as it is, it works better than it should.
Still, it’s a subplot that was shoehorned in for some added drama and really didn’t need to be there. Neither did the romance involving Adonis and his pretty musician neighbor (Tessa Thompson). It plays out the way these tired romantic subplots often do, and would a fighter really be looking to start a relationship in the midst of such intensive training? Just saying. That’s something else that didn’t need to be there, and only served to bloat the film’s run time out to an overlong two hours and thirteen minutes.
These flaws, though, are ever so slight, and really don’t harm the film overall. If there was one series that I felt didn’t need another entry, it was Rocky. However, with Creed, director Coogler managed to find a new angle, and continue the story of the Italian Stallion, while introducing us to a new hero to get behind. He has taken what worked best about the original Rocky, and has scored an absolute knockout that will surely leave a smile on even the most jaded moviegoer’s face.
