Be honest. Tell me that when you heard they were making another Rocky movie, or spinoff, or you saw the trailer... that you didn't just laugh, shake your head and immediately dismiss it. I did. I was like all of you. I saw Rocky I-III when I was a kid. I liked them. I appreciated what they were as far as setting the stage and tone of boxing movies to come. I didn't see Rocky IV-V, but I did, however, see when they made Rocky Balboa about ten years too late. It was a neat little concept, but essentially just a re-telling of the original movie with an old man. And he freaking lost. I don't know what it is about the Rocky franchise... they just don't like anyone to win. So, after the sixth film, I figured they'd be done. But we are in the golden age, folks, of Hollywood being too damn afraid of original works. That's why we're getting sequels and spinoffs and prequels and origin stories of shit we've seen a thousand times because everyone in Hollywood apparently doesn't have the balls to put out an original work (God, how nice it would've been to be a screenwriter in the 90s). However, if we're going to be subjected to dying and dead franchises being resurrected like this... I hope they're all as great as Creed.
I probably wouldn't have seen the film if it hadn't been for the critical buzz surrounding the film. Almost everything I heard/read was high praise and I couldn't figure out why. I knew Michael B. Jordan was a great actor because I'd already seen Fruitvale Station, which means I knew Creed writer/director Ryan Coogler could handle the film. I just wasn't expecting something this good. Jordan plays Adonis Creed, love-child of the woman the late Apollo Creed had an affair with (I stopped watching the late Rocky movies... I had no idea Apollo Creed was killed by some Ken-doll-looking Russian in the ring). He's raised by Apollo's widow. He's raised to be respectful, he's raised educated, and he's raised in a good home by a good woman. But, he's still got the fighting itch and needs to take care of it. So, he hops over to Philly to seek training from, none other than Rocky Balboa (Sly Stallone). Rocky trains the young scamp... not just about boxing, but about life. There are classic Rocky training montages. There are quirky training methods. There are sentimental moments between Rocky and Adonis, just like all the rest of the films. Yet, it doesn't feel like a rerun. There's a certain aura surrounding the film as well as the characters where we know exactly what's going to go down... and it does... but it doesn't feel like we predicted it. It's a very good script and a very good story.
While Michael B. Jordan can hold his own and live up to the Creed legacy, it's the surprisingly fantastic performance by Stallone, once again, as the classic character. It's a strange dichotomy that Stallone, when he wants to, is a stellar actor. Yet, he spent most of his career doing shitty action films (of which I personally thank him for). He's kind of synonymous with being a joke right along with Jean-Claude Van Damme, Steven Segal, and Arnold (you bastards!). Yet, we forget that the dude was Rocky... the movie that won best picture... that Sly wrote himself. We forget that the dude can act. And he turns in a hell of a performance here. There's an emotional resonance he brings to the character of Rocky that we forget about, or we're still just not used to. It's the father/son-esque relationship between him and Adonis that carries the film. Forget all the boxing (which is mesmerizing), I could watch the two of them together without even getting to the fight and it still would've been a fantastic movie. I haven't seen everything that 2015 has to offer, but so far I have yet to see a better supporting actor performance in a film this year and Sly is definitely the frontrunner in my book for the Oscar (at the very least, a nomination).
It's not just the acting and the writing that makes Creed great, it's the directing. America, apparently has this undying love for boxing movies. There is at least one boxing themed movie released every single year. I mean, hell, it's only been like three months since Southpaw came out. But, there's really only a handful of ways to tell and shoot a boxing film without it seeming like deja vu. And, once again, Coogler and co. step up to the plate and knock one out of the park (that's a baseball reference in a boxing movie review... that's like sports movie inception). The angles he shoots at, the long takes of boxing choreography, the sound editing of every punch, the realism in front of the camera takes you completely out of the theater and puts you right next to the ring. You stop realizing you're watching a work of fiction and everything that happens, happens in jaw-dropping fashion. It's even difficult to explain why the direction, and more specifically, the boxing scenes are so well-done, but it's almost as if Coogler has reinvented the wheel with this one. It's like you've never seen a boxing scene in a movie before this one.
Creed, to me, is probably the surprise of the year. Actually, I'll give surprise of the year to Jurassic World for being so shockingly awful that my childhood is effectively forever ruined. However, Creed is the most welcome surprise. Yes, it's not an entirely brand new and creatively original film. Yes, it's a reversal of the Rocky/Mick dynamic (fun fact: Sly, in this film, is actually older than Mick was in the first film... holy shit, right?), but it's done with pizzazz. It's done so effective and cleverly, that it's like you're watching a brand new film and not the seventh entry in a franchise that probably should've fizzled out two decades ago.
A
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