Creed (2015)
Certified: 15
Duration: 133 minutes
Directed by: Ryan Coogler
Starring: Michael Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson, Phylicia Rashad, Tony Bellew, Graham McTavish, Wood Harris, Andre Ward, Gabriel Rosado, Ritchie Coster, Jacob ‘Stitch’ Duran
KRS Releasing Ltd

When I heard that the Rocky franchise was about to have its seventh entry, I was not particularly enthused as I could not imagine how Sylvester Stallone was going to continue to milk the Italian Stallion’s cinematic fame, especially after 2006’s Rocky Balboa, which had been such a sincere and heartfelt closing off.

However, against all odds, Creed is a success story. It’s a movie with a heart that capitalises on the franchise’s myth to develop its own personality.

Ryan Coogler, who had directed the acclaimed Fruitvale Station (2013), deserves a very good slice of the merit as the picture resonates with a sense of both human and street awareness, adding more facets to it than just being another boxing popcorn entertainment picture.

Michael Jordan is Adonis Johnson who was always getting into trouble, getting into fights as he progressed through a life of juvenile detention.

When Mary Anne Creed (Phylicia Rashad), the widow of Apollo Creed who had been the world heavyweight champ, takes him in to raise him as her son, he gets to know that his fighting skills may be an inherited trait.

There is vibrant energy, cheering for the underdog and, most of all, a sense of sincerity

Adonis was the fruit of an illegitimate affair that Apollo Creed had.

The young man is successful in his job in the financial services but he is fixated on boxing. He tries to experiment by going into non-legally-sanctioned fights but he wants more. Thus he goes off to Philadelphia to find Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone), who had been his father’s opponent, a heavyweight champ who then became his father’s friend. Rocky is now a widower, running a restaurant named after his wife. However, Adonis manages to convince him to take him on.

Meanwhile, the young boxer meets Bianca (Tessa Thompson), a girl who lives downstairs and wants to become a singer, and the two get close to each other. Rocky’s health is not all that good. However, he will soon have to give Adonis all his support as young man ends up confronting Ricky Conlan (Tony Bellew), the light heavyweight champion who is going through some rather unusual circumstances of his own.

In this film, Coogler includes all the elements which had made the best Rocky movies so resonant with their audience: vibrant energy, cheering for the underdog and, most of all, a sense of sincerity.

Creed has an emotional core to it that is very tangible. Stallone and Jordan share a connection that is developed on screen. The two characters are both missing a father and a son and they find a sort of replacement in each other.

It’s in such moments, when these hard characters seem so vulnerable, that they appear more believable.

Stallone has received an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor for his role in this film.

Coogler also gives the supporting cast enough screen time. He does this by developing the roles of Bianca and Mary Anne who both care for Adonis on different levels.

The director also knows that his audience want a good and scrappy fight. So, when the film moves into the ring, that is what they get.

Coogler uses all the cinematic tricks in the book in order to deliver a ring fight that is delightfully Hollywoodian in its sense of style and manipulation but he also spares no punches.

In the end, the audience – like Adonis, Rocky and the franchise itself – will come out of the movie smiling.