Movie Review: 'Creed'
By Bill Wine
KYW Newsradio 1060
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- He may have stopped boxing, but Rocky Balboa still packs quite a punch.
The titular character of the popular Rocky franchise, played by Sylvester Stallone, returns to the big screen in Creed and, although the makers are quick to deny that it amounts to Rocky 7, it is nonetheless the seventh installment to involve South Philadelphia's Italian Stallion.
Call it a Rocky reboot for a new generation.
Creed introduces Adonis Johnson, played by Michael B. Jordan, as the new replacement protagonist. He's the bitter illegitimate son of Apollo Creed -- Rocky Balboa's fierce ring rival and eventual best bud who died before Adonis was born – and was raised in California foster homes.
Adonis is an aspiring boxer who finds himself fighting in frustrating anonymity. Then he comes to Philadelphia, where retired boxer Rocky, played by Stallone for a seventh time, is a well-known restaurateur (yo, it's called Adrian's), and asks him to come out of retirement and train him.
Rocky says no but, of course, eventually agrees to collaborate.
Like his character, Stallone was reluctant to step back in the ring. After all, the original Rocky that he wrote and starred in was nominated for ten Oscars and won three, including Best Picture, no less, in 1976. Nowhere to go but down. And Stallone further felt that he had satisfyingly concluded the six-flick franchise with 2006's fine Rocky Balboa.
But when he read the script co-written by the film's director, Ryan Coogler, who had collaborated with Jordan on his directorial debut in 2013 with the powerful Fruitvale Station, Stallone signed up for the first Rocky film that somebody else wrote.
In the film, director Coogler does a masterful job of paying tribute to previous Rocky movies and tying narrative strands together while creating an effective new direction for the franchise.
As for his numerous boxing sequences, they are remarkably exhilarating and persuasive.
The script by Coogler and Aaron Covington, based on Coogler's story, reworks the classic and effective Rocky formula, and manages to feel comfortingly familiar and freshly observed at the same time.
Jordan and Stallone have a touching and convincing father-son relationship as they fight through parallel predicaments, with Stallone offering generous nuance in his wonderfully-lived-in, tough-but-tender role. Meanwhile, Jordan, already established as a promisingly skilled young actor, uses his year of training and bulking up to look like the real deal in the ring.
Also contributing to the fabric of this well-executed film are Phylicia Rashad as Apollo Creed's widow and Tessa Thompson as a singer-songwriter with whom Adonic becomes romantically involved.
The Rocky films have always been as much about the muscular organ known as the heart as they are about those other muscles. And Creed carries on that tradition.
As for the running-up-the-Art-Museum-steps tradition: Rocky climbs those steps once again, as expected, but not running. No, walking. Slowly. Hey, things change...
So we'll train for 3 stars out of 4 for a satisfying spinoff of Rocky. This solid, entertaining pugilistic drama, which once again invites and allows us to root for the underdog, lives up to its own Creed.
