Creed

It's funny how few people actually remember the original Rocky film.  It's hardly surprising, as its legacy has been tarnished by the over the top sequels that followed.  The original 1976 movie was a somber and poignant film about a lowlife hood from Philadelphia who had a crush on the girl who worked at the local pet store.  This relationship, not the boxing, is what made up a majority of the film.  That movie was human, quietly funny, and uplifting enough to become a feel good hit that went on to win Best Picture at the Oscars that year.

It wouldn't be until 2006's Rocky Balboa that we got a return to this approach to the character.  Sylvester Stallone showed us Rocky as an aging titan who had lost just about everyone close to him to the passing of time.  He was a broken man, but he wasn't defeated, and he still had some fight left in him.  This new movie, Creed, places Rocky in a supporting role for the first time, but handles it beautifully.  Rocky is even further faded from the last time we saw him almost 10 years ago.  He's now virtually alone, and spends half his time running the Italian restaurant named after his late wife, and the other half of his time at the cemetery, reading the newspaper to the tombstones of Adrian and her brother, Paulie.  Stallone is pitch perfect, and is quite possibly giving the performance of his career.  We can see what time has done to him, but we can also still see the spark of life, humor and heart that made audiences fall in love with him 40 years ago.  This is the most human Rocky has seemed since the series began, and I don't know if I should credit Stallone, or the new director behind the film.

Creed is actually a lot of firsts for the Rocky franchise, as not only is it the first time that Rocky himself is not the main character, but it's also the first movie that was not written or directed by Stallone.  He actually had no involvement with the story or script.  Instead, 29-year-old filmmaker, Ryan Coogler (Fruitville Station), co-writes and directs this film, and manages to get to the heart of the character and the world he lives in better than perhaps Stallone could have.  You have to admire Stallone for allowing new people to handle his iconic character, but at least he's managed to find filmmakers who not only respect his creation, but have given us a truly powerful and emotional film that stands on its own.  Even removed from the rest of the series, this is a film that can win over both the converted and the newcomers alike.  My main problem with Rocky Balboa was that while it was an admirable film, it seemed to play mostly to those who had grown up on the character.  This movie strikes a perfect balance between honoring traditions, and creating new aspects that fit perfectly into the world of the series.

Instead of Balboa, the central focus of this film is newcomer Adonis Johnson (Michael B. Jordan, who previously worked with Coogler on Fruitville Station), whom we learn early on is the illegitimate son of Rocky's rival-turned-friend, Apollo Creed.  Apollo famously died in the ring in Rocky IV before his son was even born, and Adonis has spent most of his young life not knowing who his real family was.  In a prologue set in 1998, Apollo's widow (Phylicia Rashad) meets the boy for the first time in a juvenile prison, and offers to take him under her wing and raise him.  Adonis grows to be a young man with a good job, but he longs to be a professional fighter, and often sneaks off to Mexico to participate in illegal bouts.  Wanting to pursue his dream full time, and knowing his adoptive mother will never accept it, Adonis leaves everything behind, and heads to Philadelphia to track down Rocky Balboa in the hopes that he will train him.

Rocky naturally turns the kid down at first, but he is soon talked into giving Adonis some pointers on how to fight, and not long after that, is training him.  From that point on, Creed takes a fairly predictable approach to its plot, but that's not really the focus of the film.  What draws us in are the performances by Jordan and Stallone, who seem like a natural fit for each other.  If Stallone is playing the aging champ whose glory days are long behind him, then Jordan is the brash young upstart with the haunted past who has to learn to accept who he is.  The title of the film doesn't so much reflect the main character, as it represents his struggle in the film.  He doesn't want anyone to know that his last name is Creed, partially because he wants to make a name for himself in the boxing world without riding on his father's reputation, and partially because he doesn't want to come to terms with his own past, and refuses to accept it.  How these characters bond both in and outside of the ring is what gives the movie its emotional weight.  And when Rocky must face a personal struggle of his own, it is Adonis who must step in and keep him strong.

While the training and fight scenes in the film are beautifully shot and cleanly photographed, they are not what stands out the most about it.  What stood out to me is how surprisingly poignant, gripping and even occasionally tear-jerking the film can be.  It's powerful, emotional at all the right times, and funny when it needs to be.  It's also a little unexpected in some ways.  We know that Adonis will fall for the young girl who lives in the apartment downstairs from him (the lovely Tessa Thompson), but their relationship isn't the cookie cutter one that we expect.  She's a musician who suffers from a disease that is slowly taking away her hearing.  It's a problem that will get worse over time, and should this film spawn a sequel, I can imagine some very touching and sad scenes depicting her going completely deaf.  Besides this inevitable tragedy that the couple will have to face at some point, there is a lot of tenderness in their scenes together, Their relationship, combined with the love Rocky still feels for the wife that was taken away from him by cancer, creates a wonderful contrast of life beginning, and life slowly ending that the film handles in a mature and sensible way.

In a year that has seen its share of sequels (pretty much all of them disappointing), Creed easily leaps to the head of the pack as the best sequel to hit screens this year.  While I don't exactly want the talented filmmaker Ryan Coogler to focus entirely on this franchise, I do hope that he gets to continue this story, and treats it with the same respect and nuance that he does here.

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