Comment on ‘Creed’ a moving return to the ‘Rocky’ saga

‘Creed’ a moving return to the ‘Rocky’ saga

Coogler doesn’t mess with what audiences already like, but gives the series a transfusion of energy that lifts it in the 21st century. First we meet Adonis Johnson (Michael B. Jordan), who spent years in a state orphanage getting into fights — fighting is in his genes — before being adopted by the widow of his father, Apollo Creed. For those not up on their “Rocky” lore, Apollo was the heavyweight champ and rival of Rocky’s, who was eventually killed in the ring by an evil Soviet boxer. After some hard years in the orphanage, Adonis grows up in wealth and luxury, but with a nagging desire to prove himself to the phantom father figure. In between running his restaurant, he spends a lot of time in the cemetery, reading the newspaper to the tombstones of his wife and best friend. Given that concept, probably half the people reading this could devise, within five minutes, a scenario very close to that of this film. Adonis forms a connection with a young woman in his building, an aspiring singer-songwriter (Tessa Thompson), trying to make her mark before advancing deafness overtakes her. Instead of giving us a boxing match in the time-honored tradition of Stallone and Scorsese — lots of quick cuts — he films rounds in single, long takes, moving the camera along with Adonis, so that there is no letup in the audience’s feeling of threat and anxiety. Adonis is a young man who has grown up with everything, except the approval of a father, a towering figure who never knew him. [...] by now, we’re practically in the family, too. Stallone benefits, and deserves to benefit, from the audience’s long association with him and the character.

 

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