Review: Creed

Stallone - Creed
No, despite its name, Creed is not a movie about a rock band that ripped off Pearl Jam, fell apart and had its former lead singer descend into mental illness.
But it can take you higher.
Creed is less a Rocky sequel than a spin-off. It isn’t as much about rebooting the Italian Stallion as it is pointing the series in a fresh direction.

I was more optimistic about this movie than I most likely would have been because Ryan Coogler was co-writing the screenplay and directing and Michael B Jordan was starring. In 2013, Coogler and Jordan teamed up for Coogler’s debut feature; the independent drama Fruitvale Station. Fruitvale Station told the true story of Oscar Grant, a young former drug dealer who’d managed to turn his life around only to be shot dead by a transit cop on New years Day 2009. The film was an emotional powerhouse. So I was hopeful that this film would work well yet was also a little worried that Coogler might follow in the path of fellow indie director Justin Lin who debuted with the great indie drama Better Luck Tomorrow in 2003, only to end up as the house director for the Fast And The Furious series and none of his original vision showing.
That’s not the case here. Coogler crafts a film that stands well as part of the Rocky series yet can exist apart from it. While this will have added emotional resonance for those who’ve seen the other Rocky movies, newcomers will still understand it since Coogler provides enough context.
Jordan stars as Adonis Creed, the illegitimate son of the late Apollo Creed. We first see him at age ten in a juvenile facility where he gets into a fight with some fellow inmates. Not long after, he is released from juvenile hall into the custody of the step-mother he never knew he had: Mary Ann (played by Phyllicia Rashad). Once he’s out of juvie, the movie jumps ahead to present day when Adonis has a well-paying job at a financial firm. But like his dad, the lure of the ring is too strong and he often goes down to Tijuana to take part in non-sanctioned fights. He decides he wants to have a legitimate shot at boxing and quits his job. Much to the dismay of his step-mother, Adonis heads for Philadelphia with one goal in mind: getting trained by Rocky Balboa.
Rocky, in the time since we last saw him, has left boxing and is running a restaurant called Adrian’s (no Yo). At first, he is reluctant to return to the world of pugilism.  Instead, he urges Adonis to pursue other goals.  However, Adonis eventually gets the Italian Stallion to change his mind. Meanwhile, the young fighter meets and falls in love with Bianca (Tess Thompson), a singer-songwriter who lives in the same apartment building he lives in.
The story, in its broad outlines, more or less follows the Rocky formula. It’s the complex shadings to the characters and the performances by the actors playing them that helps it rise above.
Jordan plays Adonis as a young man who wonders about his father. But is eager to build his own identity. That’s something that everyone goes through eventually and Jordan brings it to life. His Adonis is not cocky overall. But he does have a few moments where ego and personal demons get the better of him.
Rocky, in this story, is a man who has come to terms with and made peace with the past. This adds to the story when he finds himself confronting his own mortality. In coming back to the icon that made him a star, Sylvester Stallone gives his best performance since Cop Land. This illustrates a general point that Stallone would do well to heed: he does his best work when he’s given a well-written character to play and held to that character by a director with creative control. Too often Stallone takes the director’s chair and he’s far from other actors turned directors like Clint Eastwood or Ben Affleck in that regard. Or he brings in guys like George P Cosmatos and Renny Harlin as opposed to Arnold Schwarzenegger who worked with the likes of James Cameron and Paul Verhoeven and let them do what they needed to do.As he proves here and in the aforementioned Cop Land (written and directed by Jim Mangold), when he works with a good script and a good director, Stallone reminds us he can act rather than bulldozing through the movie in a mechanical fashion.
Thompson, who was great in 2014’s Dear White People, plays Bianca as an independent woman who ends up loving Adonis. But does not exist simply in his shadow. She will not put up with his temper tantrum in one scene and she freely admits to the fact that she has progressive hearing loss and has made peace with it.
Indeed, the theme of acceptance is one that runs through this movie: Bianca and her hearing loss, Rocky and his mortality, Adonis and his connection to his father.
The boxing action is also well-staged. You can tell that Coogler studied the previous Rocky films as well as other classics like Raging Bull. The only real drawback is that he tends to overdo it with showing a box of the statistics of each fighter that Adonis takes on.
Yet overall, Creed stands as the best Rocky movie since the original. It works well for fans of the series, yet it will also draw in those who have now familiarity with it. This one definitely does fly now.

0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

3 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
admin
Admin
admin
8 years ago

Good write-up; I hear Stallone is getting Oscar buzz for this role, as is the film (words from the mouth of that Fandango guy.

bodwaya
bodwaya
8 years ago

Stallone was dubbed next Brando by ebert. It at least showed he had potential

robbushblog
robbushblog
8 years ago

CREED was great, and Stallone was really, really good in it. It wouldn’t bother me at all if it was up for several Oscars.

3
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x