Creed

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he world of boxing films has produced some serious heavyweights over the years, such as Raging Bull, the original Rocky and more recently, The Fighter. So nowadays when new fighting films come out such as The Warrior, Southpaw, and Creed, they have something to prove. Creed is a great film, and more than proves its worth.

There is a wealth of emotional depth and some great performances. Adonis ‘Donnie’ Johnson (Jordan) is the illegitimate son of Rocky Balboa’s (Stallone) once adversary and then friend, Apollo Creed. He spends time in children’s homes and juvenile prisons before Creed’s widow adopts him and raises him with love as her own.

The first time we see Adonis as an adult, he is fighting in Mexico. He is alone tying his gloves in the locker room, and loneliness and companionship are key themes in the film. For all Adonis’s confidence, however, he is embarrassingly knocked down after he offer’s his Mustang to anyone that can land a headshot on him and we see that he isn’t all he believes himself to be. If only there were someone to train him…

Adonis (Jordan). Image: Warner Brothers

The question of whether Rocky Balboa is the main character or a supporting role is one I found myself asking several times throughout the film. Stallone was always going to have a weightier screen presence in this film than Jordan. The audience is teased a few times before we see Rocky in the flesh with shots of the famous Rocky statue and Youtube clips of his fights with Apollo. This is helpful as it allows Johnson’s character to develop instead of being overshadowed by Rocky.

It certainly helps that the on screen chemistry between Stallone and Jordan is outstanding. We get a sense that Adonis is over the moon to work with his hero, but also that Jordan is honoured to fill Stallone’s shoes. At points, the relationship between the two does seem forced as Adonis goes searching for Rocky like Luke Skywalker searching for Yoda.

Bianca (Thompson) has both agency and tragedy in Creed. Image: Warner Brothers

This is counterbalanced by the very organically progressing relationship between Johnson and his downstairs neighbour and then girlfriend Bianca (Thompson). Bianca is, thankfully, a well developed character with goals and interests of her own and not just arm candy for Adonis. She is a singer with progressive hearing loss, and this poignantly mirrors Rocky, an aged athlete no longer able to fight.

Stallone’s performance in the film is phenomenal . We can really feel how much the character of Rocky means to him in every line he delivers. One of the most poignant scenes is the one where he goes to visit his wife and brother in law.

Stallone brings new dimensions to the role that made him famous. Image: Warner Brothers

He has no one to talk to but his deceased family and goes to the cemetery so often that he has a chair hidden in a tree there that he picks up as if from muscle memory. There are some amusing throwbacks to provide some comic relief from Rocky’s sad life, such as when he makes Adonis attempt to catch a chicken like his trainer, Mickey, made him do.

There are two main fight scenes in the film, Creed’s first professional fight, and the climactic fight of the film. The first is a cinematic masterpiece captured in one, magnificent long take. It is gritty, and modern, and feels palpably real. The latter is melodramatic, with unnecessary adornments such as lighting changes, sound effects and close ups of spilt blood, but none the less exciting to watch to the very end.

Arguably the best thing about any Rocky film is the training montage, and Adonis’s doesn’t disappoint. It is mirrored with Rocky’s cancer treatment and this is where Adonis, the new generation, really comes into his own. We don’t hear the Rocky soundtrack but an alternative score that mixes strings and choir with hip-hop. It crescendos at the end of the montage and gives that feel-good goose bump feeling we expect from a good Rocky film. Fast paced, thrilling, and surprisingly human, Creed successfully takes the Rocky franchise into the next generation in a way that Rocky Balboa did not.

Director: Ryan Coogler

Cast: Michael B Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson

Running Time: 143 mins

Country: US