Review: Creed

Michael B. Jordan is Adonis Johnson, the illegitimate son of former world heavyweight boxing champion, the late Apollo Creed. Initially raised in foster care, the troubled youngster is soon picked up by his father’s widow (Phyllicia Rashad), who selflessly raises the boy herself. The now grown-up Adonis decides to abandon his day job and turn to his late father’s career of choice, boxing. Starting out in underground fights in Mexico, Adonis (whose father died before he was born, and his birth mother not too long after) eventually moves to Philly to enter a more legitimate arena. Here he seeks out his late father’s former rival and occasional friend, Rocky Balboa (Sly Stallone). He wants the man who was the first to defeat his father to be the one to train him, but Rocky has left the boxing world to run his Italian restaurant, Adrian’s. But the kid is insistent and persistent, and before long Rocky’s making like ‘ol Mickey and teaching Adonis how to eat lightning and crap thunder. Or something like that. Meanwhile, Adonis (who is using his mother’s maiden name so as to make a name for himself away from the identity of his famous father) starts dating a local musician, Bianca (Tessa Thompson). Tony Bellew (apparently a real-life boxer) plays Adonis’ eventual adversary, backed by Graham McTavish, whilst Michael Buffer appears briefly to get us ready to rumble.

 

The fact that I re-watched the first two “Rocky” films quite recently may have played a part in it, but I was overall not quite as affected by this 2015 Ryan Coogler (“Fruitvale Station”) revisit to the world of Rocky Balboa. Oh, it’s a good film alright. In fact, it’s easily the third best “Rocky” movie to date, if you consider it an official entry in the series. However, it could’ve been even better if it weren’t for a couple of things holding it back.

 

You see, as scripted by Aaron Covington (seemingly a Jack of all trades in the technical department, this is his first screenplay contribution so far) and Coogler, this is a film that wants to have its cake and eat it too, and I wasn’t fully impressed by that. The film makes a lot of references to the previous “Rocky” films, most of which do enhance the film, especially in the scenes not entirely pertaining to what happens in the ring. However, it’s indeed the boxing narrative that I found slightly regrettable. Let’s just say that I hope when the inevitable sequel comes along that Coogler doesn’t simply give us the ending of “Rocky II”, and the tragic character loss in “Rocky III”.

 

The other issue I had with the boxing part of the story is that the antagonist played by real-life British boxer Tony Bellew is not only introduced way too late into the piece to resonate, but at worst he’s a bit of a knob, hardly the interesting and hateable antagonist you’d want. So with these issues in mind, the boxing story being told just didn’t pull me in as much as I would’ve liked. I also thought the punches looked even more fake than usual, but that might just be me.

 

It’s a shame, because when this film works, it really, really works. I won’t say I was blubbering like a baby as many (mostly male) viewers appear to have experienced, but I can’t deny there’s some quite effective and affecting character drama here. For me, the most impressive actor here is Michael B. Jordan. He’s always had talent and charisma, but he was quite simply born to play the illegitimate son of Apollo Creed. There’s a lot of fascinating stuff with this guy, being that he never met his dad, was raised by the wife his father cheated on, and he wants to follow in his father’s footsteps to become a top boxer. One early scene with Adonis shadow-boxing to footage of his father fighting projected on a wall, with Adonis in his father’s foe’s position, says a lot. This kid has daddy issues up to yin-yang. A later scene where Rashad sends Adonis a gift will render anyone with a beating heart inside of them close to tears. It’s a shame that the boxing part of the film is so predictable and familiar, because I really wanted to root for Adonis, and I was certainly caught up in what his character was going through internally. It’s just that I felt it was a little lazy to go down such a familiar road, and not giving us a worthy antagonist (or at least, in the mould of Apollo Creed, a charismatic opponent, if not completely hateable) didn’t help at all. Were we meant to hate Bellew because he has an English accent? That’s such a cheap ploy, and frankly an outdated stereotype.

 

On the plus side, the cinematography by Maryse Alberti (“Crumb”, “When We Were Kings”, “The Wrestler”) is terrific in the fight scenes. It looks stunning and crisp, and thankfully free of the repetitive use of slow-mo seen in the “Rocky” sequels. As for Oscar-nominee Sly Stallone, at first I felt like I was seeing more Sly than Rocky, to be honest. However, given how the two somewhat blended together after a certain point in Stallone’s career, it’s kind of poetic. Is Stallone saying goodbye to the character here? The question did occur to me whilst watching. Once you get to the cemetery scene, that’s when the character of Rocky really comes out. In what is clearly the most affecting scene in the entire film, Rocky visits the graves of wife Adrian and friend/brother-in-law Paulie (Unless he turned down the gig, I bet Burt Young’s pissed. Dude’s still alive, y’know!), and if you’re not moved by this scene, you’re probably already a corpse. This is definitely Rocky, albeit an older, slightly resigned Rocky, and it’s both touching and heartbreaking. It’s everything, and you just have to love this character, surely one of the most beloved in all of cinema. We’ve seen him through good times and bad, and now he’s older, more frail, but still plugging away doing the best he can for however long he has left. It’s not, in my view a great performance, though. It’s not even the best performance in the film, that’s Jordan for me. With Jordan, it’s all performance and almost all to the actor’s credit, with Stallone he’s playing Rocky Balboa as a supporting character, and it’s a mixture of audience connection to an already established and beloved character (a great character at that) and Stallone’s own performance itself. So I think Jordan does the more impressive job, but it’s a solid turn by the aging star that allowed everyone to embrace Stallone again as a legit actor when he wants to be. Is this Stallone’s best performance since 1982’s “First Blood”? Probably, though many will cite “Cop Land” and that’s fine (I just think he’s shamefully underrated in “First Blood”, as is the film itself). He probably deserved the Oscar too, at least more than eventual winner Mark Rylance did. I particularly liked his character’s initial reluctance to train Adonis, basically telling him that unless he has no other choice, Adonis shouldn’t even box. Rocky clearly knows what he’s talking about in this regard. There’s a really touching quality to the relationship between Rocky and Adonis, it’s like through being trained by his father’s greatest opponent, he can get somewhere close to knowing his father better (at least, outside of what Apollo’s wife has probably told him). We also find out who won the unofficial third fight between Rocky and Apollo. Or is that just what Rocky wants Adonis to believe? I’m glad it was brought up, either way. I also thought it was a cute touch that Rocky still owns a turtle, a call-back to Cuff and Link in the first film.

 

Tessa Thompson also deserves a mention as Adonis’ love interest. Her character’s music is beyond monotonous and pretentious, but the character and relationship with Adonis is sweet, and Thompson has something, whatever it is. In a much smaller turn it was also lovely to see veteran Phyllicia Rashad as Apollo’s wife, proving the character to be a tower of strength and amazingly selfless compassion in scant screen time. If they do a sequel, I hope we see more from her, as she’s an incredibly underrated actress. Although nothing can top the training montages from the first and third “Rocky” films, this film probably has the next best. Having said that, let’s face it, most of the other films had ridiculous training montages (I’m looking at you in particular, “Rocky IV”). One of the biggest plusses is the music score by Ludwig Goransson (“We’re the Millers”, TV’s “Community”), which for me is the best music score of 2015. Familiar Bill Conti (the “Rocky” series) themes are faintly echoed throughout, occasionally louder echoes than that as we head towards the climax. It becomes almost Ennio Morricone levels of operatic, and really quite moving.

 

If you want to consider this an official “Rocky” movie, then it’s certainly the best one since “Rocky III”, but not better than that underrated sequel. It isn’t a great film, but it did get me more emotionally invested in its lead character than any film in the series since the original. Yes, parts “III” and “IV” had emotional deaths and moments here and there, but this has several more weighty emotional moments in my view. The problem is the boxing part of the story. I may have been emotionally invested in the lead character, but I was left entirely cold by its too late arriving antagonist and a little too much borrowed from previous films, bringing the film down a peg or two. I wish the film was great, but there’s no shame in being pretty good. This is definitely pretty good (though it loses on points to “Southpaw” by my count), though given where the story appears to be headed, I actually don’t want a sequel. I have a feeling where it’s headed, and I’m not sure I’m emotionally ready for it, to be honest.

 

Rating: B-