Creed (2015)

Directed by:  Ryan Coogler

Written by: Ryan Coogler, Aaron Covington, & Sylvester Stallone (characters)

Starring: Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone,  & Tessa Thompson






Thanksgiving.  What a wonderful holiday to eat, spend time with family and friends, and especially...go to the movies!  Well for this film, I actually went the day before, but same thing almost.

Creed stars Jordan playing Adonis Johnson, the child of an affair between Johnson's mother and Apollo Creed, a great boxer way back when.  When Johnson wants to make a name for himself and get into the boxing world, he turns to Rocky Balboa (Stallone) who fought Apollo Creed three times before.  They were rivals and friends.  Johnson tries to fight his way to the top with his biggest opponent being himself.

So I've seen all seven of the Rocky films.  I love Rocky.  And this one was good too, but not 5 popcorns good.

I enjoyed the story and where it went.  It reminded me a lot of the first Rocky with a similar plot of a nobody fighter fighting someone really well known.  Of course there are differences with Johnson having family issues while in Rocky, Balboa was just trying to get recognized with Adrian and Mickey.  But wait...now that I think about, it is the same too.  Johnson trying to get recognized by Thompson's character Bianca as well as him trying to get Balboa to train him.  So yeah, pretty much the same film.  Which may be why I was not so impressed.

So I guess the main difference between the movies is just the main character.  Rocky versus Adonis.  They have different personalities, but other than that, it's pretty much the same film as the first one. with a few different scenes.  But those new scenes are really other scenes from previous Rocky films.  

As for technical differences, this film was directed by Coogler, who also did Fruitvale Station.  He has not made many films, but for being so young, he's pretty good.  But for this film, his directing style, mainly camera and editing montage, bugged me.  With the Rocky films most of the shots are medium and a little far away.  In Creed, there were close ups and how do I explain this...like point of view shots, but they seemed like they were from the wrong point of view.  There was just something off about it.

Also I'm not sure what the director's motives were for the training montage.  Just like Rocky, Johnson trains for his big fight with running, chicken catching, jump rope, etc...but it wasn't successful.  Maybe that was Coogler's intentions to throw the audience off with a different montage, but it was just too similar to the original and it did not use important shots like running up the steps or any air punching.  Maybe Coogler was trying to show the different personalities between the two men.  I don't know, I just didn't like it.

Another issue I had was the emotional part.  I understand that this film is supposed to be about Adonis and his issues with being a Creed, but everyone, of course, goes to see this film because of Stallone playing Rocky.  Everyone knows and loves Rocky.  That's just how it is.  And, as shown in the trailer, Rocky is by himself.  Adrian and Paulie are dead.  In the trailer, he seemed really torn up about it, more so than the actual film, but I think it was was too much of a quick cut.  The editor should have let that scene breathe more and it could have been more emotional therefore could have been bringing it up to 5 popcorns.

Other than that the story was good and so was the acting.  The casting department really picked a great choice with Jordan as well as the other new characters.  But with those issues that I had with this film, I'll give it 4 popcorns.  If you liked the other Rocky films, you'll like this one too.