Creed

Director: Ryan Coogler
Screenplay: Ryan Coogler & Aaron Covington (story by Ryan Coogler; based on characters created by Sylvester Stallone)
Stars: Michael B. Jordan (Adonis Johnson), Sylvester Stallone (Rocky Balboa), Tessa Thompson (Bianca), Phylicia Rashad (Mary Anne Creed), Andre Ward (Danny “Stuntman” Wheeler), Tony Bellew (“Pretty” Ricky Conlan), Ritchie Coster (Pete Sporino), Jacob “Stitch” Duran (Stitch), Graham McTavish (Tommy Holiday), Malik Bazille (Amir), Ricardo McGill (Padman), Gabe Rosado (Leo “The Lion” Sporino), Wood Harris (Tony “Little Duke” Burton), Buddy Osborn (Conlan’s Cut Man)
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Year of Release: 2015
Country: U.S.
Creed
CreedIn the goofy sci-fi comedy Airplane II: The Sequel (1982), there is a throwaway visual gag in a scene in which Sonny Bono is buying a bomb at an airport gift shop (don’t ask). In the background, just over his right shoulder, is a prominent poster for Rocky XXXVII featuring the Italian Stallion as an elderly, balding man whose stooped shoulders seem barely capable of holding up his gloves and the World Heavyweight Championship belt around his waist (Rocky III, whose poster the film is satirizing, had been released six months earlier). Like the Jaws 19 hologram joke in Back to the Future Part II (1989), it is a relatively toothless parody of the rampant sequelitis that began gripping Hollywood in the 1980s, and even if it seemed at the time that the Rocky movies might go on and on, I doubt that anyone in theaters in late 1982 genuinely imagined that, more than three decades later, we would be lining up for another one.

Yet, here we are with Creed, Ryan Coogler’s unexpected and finely wrought extension of the franchise that seemed dead with the underwhelming Rocky V in 1990 before Sylvester Stallone resurrected it in 2006 with Rocky Balboa. The latter film, a poignant character study of the boxer’s later years, seemed designed to put a final coda on the series that first made Stallone a star, and it worked quite beautifully. Thus, it is something of a hard sell to imagine Creed as anything more than an opportunistic cash grab for franchise nostalgia, but 29-year-old Coogler, who was still a decade from being born when Rocky (1976) won the Best Picture Oscar over the heavily favored Network (1976), infuses his film with a genuine passion and unironic attachment to the original’s best qualities, particularly its delicate balancing act between anguish and triumph. Creed is a modern film, but it harkens back to a previous era in all the right ways.

Stallone’s now retired Rocky takes on a supporting role this time around as the narrative centers on Adonis “Donnie” Johnson (Michael B. Jordan), the illegitimate son of Apollo Creed, the heavyweight champ that Rocky fought in the first two films and who returned to train him and become his unlikely best friend in the third before being killed in the ring in the fourth. We first meet Donnie, who never knew Apollo because he died before he was born, as an angry kid in a juvenile prison who is taken in by Apollo’s widow, Mary Anne (Phylicia Rashad). She wants him to grow up on the straight and narrow and not follow in his father’s footsteps as a fighter, but there is just too much Creed in him. Now in his 20s, Donnie quits a secure white-collar job with a financial firm to pursue boxing full time, something he has been doing on the side as a self-trained fighter taking on bouts in Tijuana. He packs up and moves from L.A. to Philadelphia, hoping to convince Rocky, who is still running a restaurant named for his beloved wife Adrian, to train him. Rocky resists at first, but is ultimately drawn in, partially by Donnie’s tenacity and partially by the commitment he feels to Apollo, who approached him when he was at a low point in his life and brought him back to the top.

The heart of the film is in the surrogate family that Donnie and Rocky form during his training. Rocky, having lost almost everyone who is close to him, including Adrian’s cantankerous brother Paulie, has withdrawn into an insular world of his own, and Donnie helps draw him out. Remembering that the original Rocky was about a loner who becomes an underdog hero largely through the relationships he develops with others—Adrian, Paulie, and grizzled trainer Mickey—makes Rocky’s narrative arc all the more poignant. Donnie, on the other hand, has spent his entire life running away from the Creed name because he wants to make it on his own outside his father’s shadow (remember that Apollo was originally based on Muhammad Ali), but in doing so he has alienated himself from the only family he has. Thus, they are two isolated souls in need of grounding and support, and together they become more than they could be alone.

The storyline reflects the original Rocky in many ways, as Donnie, a virtual unknown in the boxing world, is given an unlikely shot when he is chosen to take on “Pretty” Ricky Conlan (Tony Bellew), a tattooed British pugilist who currently holds the title of world light heavyweight champion. Like Rocky when he was a Philly nobody given a shot at the title, Donnie is selected largely based on his name, although this time it isn’t just because his opponent likes the sound of it, but because his opponent’s manager knows that the Creed name will drawn crowds and dollars. Thus, just like Rocky, Donnie’s shot at the title is not a climactic manifestation of his hard work, but rather a one-in-a-million gift that, more than anything, gives him the opportunity to reveal his true self and prove that he is not, in his own works, “a mistake.” During this time Donnie also develops a relationship with Bianca (Tessa Thompson), a musician with progressive hearing loss who lives in the apartment beneath him. And, while at first it seems that their relationship is simply pro forma, a necessary romantic respite from all the boxing and training, the scenes between them have a tenderness that proves both endearing and complimentary to Donnie’s growing relationship with Rocky.

Coogler, who approached Stallone about making the film, first gained notice two years ago with his directorial debut Fruitville Station (2013), and he handles Creed like a seasoned veteran, particularly in the way he draws aesthetically and thematically from the previous Rocky films while also making Creed decidedly his own. The script is brimming with allusions to the earlier films, but in ways that are nuanced and meaningful—Adonis shadowboxing against his own father projected via a YouTube video, a return to Mickey’s old gym, the fabled stars-and-stripes shorts that were passed first from Apollo to Rocky (while they originally stood for Apollo’s showmanship and arrogance, they have now come to stand for the importance of legacy). Many shots and sequences are reminiscent of iconic moments from the earlier films, thus it is no surprise that Adonis moves into Rocky’s old neighborhood so we can watch him jogging in a gray sweat-suit through the meat-packing district and past various row houses. Coogler even employs elements of Bill Conti’s original score, as well as an updated version of “Gonna Fly Now (Rocky’s Theme).” In the hands of a lesser filmmaker, this could all easily feel like pandering to the audience, but Coogler makes sure that everything fits so tightly together that it all feels of a piece, even when he deviates significantly from the familiar style, as he does in Adonis’s first big fight, which he depicts as a single, unbroken shot from the middle of the ring.

Michael B. Jordan, who broke out in 2012 as one of three teenagers who develops telekinetic powers in the offbeat superhero movie Chronicle and previously worked with Coogler on Fruitville Station, is thoroughly impressive, conveying Donnie’s pent-up frustrations and anger, but also his resilience and fundamental decency. He is a good person who has constantly been dealt bad hands, something that Rocky understands and appreciates. Stallone delivers what is arguably his best performance, investing the aging Italian Stallion with a heavy heart and a constant eye toward his own mortality. When Rocky is given some particularly bad news halfway through the film, the close-up of Stallone’s face cracking and falling with the weight of it all is absolutely heartbreaking; it’s the best work he’s ever done. Of course, Stallone’s performance and the film as a whole will work best for those who have seen all the previous Rocky films and grown attached to the characters, something that Coogler clearly had in mind. Yet, anyone with a heart will surely find Creed’s sincerity in celebrating the agony of the underdog, both young and old, immensely satisfying, if not genuinely profound.

Copyright ©2015 James Kendrick

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All images copyright © MGM / Warner Bros. / New Line Cinema

Overall Rating: (3.5)




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