Creed
Look people I get choked up during Rocky movies so take this review with all the grains of salt you can find. I am a huge Rocky fan because I’m a huge boxing fan so the cards are stacked in the favor of Creed here.
SPOILERS AHEAD! Let’s get ready to rumble with this HOWL on the newest chapter in the Rocky franchise Creed.
But really though people I love even the corny Rocky movies and I thought that this was a really cool way to extend the franchise and give Rocky a true successor in the son of an old rival turned friend and Michael B. Jordan played it quite well. Rocky plays the perfect mentor that he never got to be to Tommy Gunn in Rocky V.
One thing I will say that the movie brings home is also the idea that Apollo Creed truly was the Rocky universe’s version of Muhammad Ali. When watching the Rocky movies you almost forget that Apollo was suppose to be the most famous boxer to ever live in the same way we regard Ali. I forgot this until Tessa Thompson’s character Bianca states something along the lines of “you didn’t tell your dad was the most famous boxer to ever live” or something like that. So we are watching and story closer to if Muhammad Ali was killed in the ring and his son became a famous boxer and was trained by Rocky Marciano, god rest his soul. I will say they do miss on that grandness a little. That would be a media frenzy!
I love how they have made the attempt at making the characters every bit as endearing as the original Rocky cast. The downtrodden boxer who do to a series of events gets to fight as an under dog against the champion of the world. The musician doomed to lose her hearing. I mean you have to love this.
Rocky getting cancer was harsh for me but it was definitely in his character to refuse treatment. It was also in Adonis’ character to be just as hard headed and refuse to fight if Rocky didn’t “fight”.
I loved the super long tracking shots in which the camera doesn’t cut away and just follows Adonis from the locker room to the ring and what not. It really just puts you in the head of a boxer which I thought was really dope.
Just like action movies I also love it’s larger than life take on real life action. Boxing matches are brutal and here we get to watch boxers take and deliver punishment and recover from things that would normally bring a boxing match to a close. That’s what we go to the movies for. Even the over the top way that it seemed like every character thought that there was a good chance he could die in the ring. As if boxers are just dying all the time mid fight or something. A death in a boxing match is extremely rare but hey it’s a movie. You gotta be dramatic.
I had a lot of fun watching this one but hey I’m a Rocky fan. Hopefully we’ll get an extended series of Creed just as we did with Rocky. Maybe not as many as Rocky but 3 would be nice.
Let me know what you guys think.