Stallone (“Rocky”) reprises his Oscar-winning role as Rocky Balboa but this time to take up the mantle of teacher and mentor to the son of his greatest rival in “Creed.”
This is Creed as in Apollo Creed (played masterfully by Carl Weathers) who was at first Rocky’s foil turned best friend throughout the first four of the “Rocky” movies. It was his buffed out looked that stunned audiences in “Rocky III” only to eventually be pounded into raw meat and die in the ring at the hands of Russian “boxer” Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren) in “Rocky IV.”
And unless you have an old VHS video tape of these early “Rocky” movies hanging around, none of this will make any sense to you, except that before having his head squeezed into a used orange by the aforementioned Mr. Drago, Apollo Creed fathered a son, Adonis Johnson (played by Michael B. Jordan) who never knew his famous father.
Fast forward two decades and the glory of Rocky Balboa, the undisputed “Heavyweight Champion of the World” has long since faded with “The Rock” now running an Italian restaurant in Philadelphia called Adrian’s after his long dead wife (played by Talia Shire). In walks the son of his long dead best friend and you know what is going to happen next as Rocky takes the young Creed (and promising fighter) under his protective wing.
Rocky sees much of Apollo in the young Adonis … crash, belligerent and with two hands made of solid steel who could punch out a horse.
You and I both know that Rocky will train Adonis until he collapses or gives up.
There are so many similarities in this quasi-Rocky movie that every beat, every turn has been scripted decades before. You know what is coming … the obligatory title boxing fight given to Creed, more so because of his father’s legacy than for his own fighting prowess, the training sequences with Rocky sticking his craggy face into the young fighter’s own, the pre-fight press conference, the weigh-in and of course, the title fight at the film’s closing.
Rocky even has a heart -attack and gets off his near deathbed to be at Creed’s side for the finale which you also know that this revised series will go on and on as long as pesos keep ka-chinging in at the theater cash registers.
After his truly horrible performance in this summer’s “Fantastic Four,” the worst movie of the year, Michael B. Jordan more than carries his own as the son of Apollo Creed. Clearly he can read a script and follow along the lines that are given to him but there is a sense of attraction in Jordan, of inner strength that with the right role, may one day earn himself an Academy Award.
I did say someday because it will not be coming in this film.
“Creed“ is an interesting mix of the Rocky mythology and “overcoming all the odds.” Certainly Jordan wants this series to continue with or without the aged Stallone by his side.
Written for the screen and directed by Ryan Coogler who himself is an up and coming African American director who has name his own claim to fame with the well done “Fruitvale Station” in 2013. Look for both Coogler and Jordan to team up with another “Rocky/Creed” sequel in the coming months.
I have always liked the “Rocky” series for its raw portrayal (and correct) of the street of Philadelphia of which Rocky trained to the blaring beat of Bill Conti’s “Gonna Fly Now” and his financial and social impact to the city for years earned him a larger than life bronze statue in the city center.
Those days, like the Rocky statue, are long gone but one day soon we may, if the box office receipts are strong enough, see a similar stature erected in the likeness of Mr. Jordan.
Times they are a changing and unless Mr. Stallone has a “Hot Tub Time Machine” of his own that he can jump into and to reverse the aging of his 69 years and once again become the 30-year-old boxer the world fell in love with in the original Rocky (and earn yet another Best Picture Oscar), we will settle with Creed.
This is a worthy successor to the original “Rocky” film of four decades ago. We will never again see Stallone don the tights of a professional boxer but his impact in and out of the ring on the son of Apollo Creed is a terrific tale and takes the Rocky legend full circle.
It should not be missed.
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