Film Review: Creed

Creed. Rated M (mature themes, violence and coarse language). 133 minutes. Directed by Ryan Coogler. Screenplay by Ryan Coogler and Aaron Covington.

Officially the seventh film in the Rocky series, Creed politely ignores the less successful Rocky V (1990) and Rocky Balboa (2006), and picks up where 1985’s Rocky IV left us.

Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) still mourns the loss of his wife Adrian (Talia Shire), and dutifully works in the restaurant he named in her honour. Meanwhile, Adonis Johnson (Alex Henderson) the young son of his great adversary (and eventually friend) Apollo Creed, is doing time in a juvenile justice centre for being unable to control his temper. When the late Apollo’s wife Mary Anne (Phylicia Rashad) arrives to take the boy into her care, Adonis realises that this may be the second chance he has dreamed of.

Fast-forward seventeen years, and the restless Adonis (Michael B. Jordan) decides to quit his job at a financial services company to pursue his dream of becoming a champion boxer like his father, and begins by tracking down Rocky in the hope that he will become his trainer. While he is at first incredibly reluctant, Rocky gradually realises that the path to realising a lifetime’s resolution may lie in the future of this determined young man.

Coogler (Fruitvale Station) is in complete command of the cinematic history he is creating, and the great performances he elicits from his outstanding ensemble. His and Covington’s screenplay is the perfect combination of respect to the formidable Stallone’s iconic Rocky, and the passion, discipline and drive of a young boxer’s fearless ambition.

Jordan (Fruitvale Station) brings the many contradictions of Appollo’s rite of passage to the screen superbly – matching the great Stallone to perfection. Every one of their scenes together bristles with an emotionally-charged, powerful energy that, as the story powers up to its stunning conclusion, becomes almost overwhelming.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.