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There’s an alternate timeline in which Creed is a superfluous waste of
nostalgia. In that universe, Warner Bros. gave the reins to a filmmaker other
than Ryan Coogler, the young Oakland-born director who stunned viewers in 2013
with Fruitvale Station, a bio-drama about the death of Oscar Grant. Maybe
Coogler is the last person anyone might expect to take up Sylvester Stallone’s
mantle and breathe new life into the long-abiding, conditionally beloved Rocky
franchise. Fruitvale Station, after all, doesn’t suggest Coogler’s ability at
orchestrating thrills in the square circle. It’s socially conscious art made for
a moment in American history where our nation remains undecided as to whether
black lives matter or not.
There’s a chance that Creed might have turned out just fine without Coogler at
the helm. But that version of Creed would lack the chief detail that makes
Coogler’s film so good: perspective. Structurally, Creed is nearly a
beat-for-beat remake of Rocky, which is fine if not particularly exciting on
paper. It’s different, though, because it isn’t about Rocky Balboa at all. It’s
about Adonis (Michael B. Jordan), the son of Rocky’s rival-turned-best friend,
Apollo Creed, whom we first meet in juvie pummeling an older, larger boy while
their fellow delinquents cheer and jeer them on. Apollo died in 1985, when Rocky
IV and Dolph Lundgren both proved to be too much for him to withstand. Adonis, a
child of one of Apollo’s extramarital affairs, never knew the man or became
acquainted with his reputation.
Creed plays with the idea of fatherhood in absentia through Adonis’ struggle to
make a name
for himself while honoring his dad’s. Adonis, or “Donnie,” is raised by Mary
Anne (Phylicia Rashad), Apollo’s widow, out of a sense of compassion and duty,
and she tries her best to steer him away from a boxer’s life. As Donnie gets
older and more recalcitrant, though, her efforts are spurned. “I ought to knock
you out myself,” she fumes when he comes home with a shiner after pissing off
trained, tested boxers with his raw braggadocio. He can’t help but fight, even
though he doesn’t need to. Mary Anne has wealth and means, and subsequently so
does Donnie. So why fight at all?
That’s the fundamental question Donnie and Creed have to answer to succeed,
though maybe the better question is, “What’s worth fighting for?” Creed checks
about every box it can in reply to that query: Pride. Honor. Dignity.
Self-respect. Family name. The adrenaline boost of being in the arena. It saves
the best, and most important, answer for last, though, and that’s personhood.
He’s fighting to prove himself in deep, existential ways. Donnie has no
connection to his dad except through video footage of his matches (which Donnie
shadowboxes to). His best bet at finding that connection is through Rocky, and
because Creed is a Rocky film, it inevitably must trot out the champ. So Donnie
makes for Philly and harangues Rocky into training him.
Creed fully comes alive in Rocky’s first meeting with Donnie. Their introduction
is a snowball effect: The more they interact, the better the film gets. Part of
the allure here is watching two great, but very different, performers bounce off
of each other by doing their respective things:
Stallone is so good at the humble, streetwise sage act that he could do it in
his sleep, but he’s more engaged with Coogler’s material than he’s ever been
with a single Expendables joint. How could he not be? Jordan is the kind of
actor who brings so much vim to his roles that he forces his co-stars to work
harder by consequence. They’re a fantastic buddy pair. Jordan gives Stallone his
fire. Stallone lends Jordan his experience.
Eventually, their partnership winds its way up to a high-stakes boxing match
with Creed’s heavy, a nasty, undefeated British boxer named “Pretty” Ricky
Conlan (real-life boxer Tony
Bellew). But Creed is about rich storytelling more than tight plotting, and
Coogler is such a vivid narrator that you might overlook how well he and
cinematographer Maryse Alberti capture the movie’s many bouts. (It’s also worth
noting that he cuts a pretty damn great montage, too.) The journey here is more
meaningful than the destination thanks to the way Coogler subverts the Rocky
formula as well as the modern studio tentpole. The underdog here isn’t a poor
kid from Kensington; he’s the heir of a boxing legend who follows the path to
prove that he deserves just to exist. The love interest isn’t a throwaway
detail; Bianca (Tessa Thompson), Donnie’s bonnie lass, is a musician with
progressive hearing loss who at first appears to exist just to motivate him,
until she baldly questions that misogynistic trope and asserts herself as a
fully realized human being in the process.
And then, of course, there’s Rocky himself, who is revealed to have cancer later
on in the film. There’s an air of masculine chagrin to his arc. We’re not used
to seeing guys like Rocky laid this low and left this vulnerable. Donnie is his
chance at winning glory in the ring again, but the kid also gives him the
strength to fight anew when he’s down and out. It’s every bit as schmaltzy as it
sounds, but schmaltz is Rocky’s bread and butter. Coogler makes it his, too. He
understands that schmaltz is pure delight when it’s served properly: with
earnest emotion and through rousing spectacle. Against all odds, “Creed” emerges
as a powerhouse continuation of Stallone’s creation, carrying all the fire and
emotion of the original 1976 movie while reworking irresistible formula for a
new generation of underdog cinema. Creed defies our expectations of its genre
even as it fulfills them. You may not see a better crowd-pleaser this season.
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