Loaded with Heart and Soul, "Creed" Packs a Wallop

Why no, my good sir, I shall decline your offer of a crack pipe. But I'll take dat dere see-ringe!

 I   n 1982, Airplane 2 was released—a sequel to a spoof movie mocking everything from terrorists to just about every other disaster movie ever made—and movie goers were fairly accustomed to getting ripped off at the box office by the same movie being made over and over again. Rocky III had just been released, which Airplane 2 poked fun at hinting there would be a Rocky 38 which would star none other than Rocky Balboa donning boxing gloves as an old man, ready to make a few more bucks. 

It was pretty much accepted at that time that the first Rocky (made in 1976) was quite good and that the sequels were more or less a money-making scheme that audiences still got a kick out of even though they were considered weak films by most. All this to say that nobody in their right mind would have ever predicted that whenever a Rocky 7 would be released, it would be any good.

Creed essentially tells a story about the illegitimate son Apollo Creed (Rocky Balboa's nemsis in the first 2 Rocky films) had during an affair: Adonis "Donnie" Johnson. 

Adonis is a successful businessman living in California by day, but, in his spare time has a raw obsession with boxing watching old films of his dad's greatest fights and taking on blood matches in the bowels of Mexico's sleazy boxing rings. Michael B. Jordan does a fabulous job bringing a palpable intensity to "Donnie" and the audience can identify with his pain and his many conflicts, just as we did with Rocky Balboa in Rocky forty years ago. 

"Donnie" decides to quit his job to pursue a real boxing career and he seeks none other than the Italian Stallion (Rocky—Sly Stallone) to train him. 

Surprisingly enough, Stallone does a great job acting alongside rising star Johnson and the two have real chemistry together. 

Along for the ride is "Bianca", Donnie's love interest, a singer/song-writer who is slowly becoming deaf. She too is a sympathetic character beautifully played by Tessa Thompson who the audience can easily root for.

Every character in Creed is severely troubled. Rocky has cancer, Donnie has many moral conflicts, his girlfriend is going deaf, Donnie's final boxing opponent—the champion of the world, Ricky Conlan—is about to go to prison for breaking the law, and they are all brought together in an exciting, at times beautifully-shot film that is so full of guts and heart that it is difficult to even fathom that this is Rocky 7.

Donnie's first big fight is shot in one long take that lasts at least 5 minutes, making the viewer dizzy, much like a real fighter must feel like as he's getting pounded around. Creed's musical score cleverly adapts Bill Conti's famous notes to Bianca's songs giving the movie an organic boost, and the streets of Philadelphia—where much of Donnie's training takes place—have never looked so raw and pure.

This is not a typical Rocky sequel where Stallone wins in the end during a comical climax. Instead, Creed takes chances and is very difficult to ignore and even gives hope to even the most cynical movie-goers that perhaps Hollywood sequels can be good after all. —Dane Joe