Movie Review: Creed
What We Liked
What We Didn't Like
One of the great strengths of the Rocky franchise is its sense of a true continuing narrative, rather than a momentum-devoid series of rehashes orchestrated purely for financial gain. From the original Rocky through Rocky III, and again with 2006’s Rocky Balboa, the series’ characters actually change in interesting, logical, and significant ways from film to film. We’ll neglect 
the more perfunctory Rocky IV and Rocky V for this argument, but it’s remarkable nonetheless that such a blockbuster film series has maintained such a sense of narrative integrity for the lion’s share of its run. Balboa seemed poised as a lovely swan song to the franchise’s legacy, but, like Rocky himself rising from the mat to claim an unlikely late-bout victory, the new film Creed proves that there’s still a surprising amount of juice in the decades-spanning series.
And it does so by shifting the focus off Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky entirely. Creed’s protagonist is Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan), illegitimate son of the late Apollo (Carl Weathers), who defeated Rocky in the original film. Adonis has an understandable disdain for his father, whom he never knew, but in seedy Tijuana brawls he shows a clear talent for the ring Apollo dominated. Determined to make a name for himself in his father’s sport, Adonis moves from his Los Angeles home to Philadelphia to seek out the mentorship of his father’s old adversary-turned-chum. Rocky is at first hesitant to leave his quiet retirement, but soon gives in, and the legacy of the Creed name quickly draws Adonis’ first big fight against unsavory British light-heavyweight champ “Pretty” Ricky Conlan (Anthony Bellew).
Creed’s producers could scarcely have come up with a better injection of new blood than Jordan, consistently one of the best young actors working today. The actor makes an immediate impression, painting Adonis as a driven young man with a point to prove, but also a sympathetic character with a sense of humor and deep wounds left by his father’s absence. He works well with his supporting cast – particularly Tessa Thompson as his feisty and nicely developed romantic interest, but especially Stallone as the old pro himself. Stallone settles gracefully into the supporting position in a surprisingly moving story arc, giving his best performance since, well, Rocky Balboa. Rocky and Adonis develop a relationship based upon mutual respect, and given the rich interplay between Jordan and Stallone it seems likely that the actors developed the same between themselves.
While Stallone wrote all the original Rocky flicks and directed most of them, Creed makes a good call in handing those creative reins over to a new talent. That’d be Ryan Coogler, who also directed Jordan in the powerful Fruitvale Station two years ago. Creed is a far more conventional film than Fruitvale, and outside of an arresting opening scene set in an L.A. juvenile detention center it’s certainly less politically charged. But as in Fruitvale, Coogler shows a strong eye for character-establishing detail, always a strength of the Rocky franchise, and surely deserves credit for how well this cast works together. His film runs a little long, and its concluding boxing showdown can’t live up to the remarkable high bar set by an earlier bout shot in a single jaw-dropping take, but in general Coogler turns out to be an excellent successor to Stallone’s throne behind the scenes.
All in all, Creed is a thoroughly rousing flick that gives us everything we expect of a Rocky movie – strong characters, humor, and an underdog tale of personal betterment – while moving the series’ narrative forward and even moving its original title character out of the spotlight. Unlike Balboa, it doesn’t feel like a coda of any sort. As Creed ends, it seems Adonis is only just beginning. Given the extraordinarily solid job the filmmakers have done establishing him as the new star of the long-running Rocky show, it’s impossible not to muster at least some enthusiasm for where Jordan (and, hopefully, Coogler) will take the franchise next.
Patrick Dunn
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