By now–39 years in–you’ve made up your mind on the Sylvester Stallone Rocky persona. Whether you see it as down-home, dogged, feel-good corn or self-aware bluster, his character needs little explanation. In Creed, playing a reluctant trainer, Stallone feels right at home uttering lines like “It’s you against you; he’s just in the ring,” and “Time takes everybody out; time’s undefeated.”
Lucky for Stallone, in this, the seventh Rocky film, he’s surrounded by the talented 29-year-old director Ryan Cooger (Fruitvale Station) and the up-and-coming actor Michael B. Jordan. They both bring a fresh vitality to the proceedings. The result is a crowd-pleasing entertainment that minimizes cliches and maximizes fresh scenes long on authenticity and solid film craft.
Jordan plays Adonis Johnson, the son of former heavyweight champion and Rocky franchise stalwart Apollo Creed. Although he never knew his father, who died in the ring before he was born, Adonis is hustling on the sneak as a boxer in shady below-the-border matches in Mexico. Adopted out of a foster home by his dad’s wife, Mary Anne (Phylicia Rashad, looking happy to be free of Bill Cosby) Adonis must face her obstreperous commands to not pursue boxing.
He doesn’t listen to her. Instead, he heads out of Mary Anne’s plush L. A. digs and packs his bags and heads to Philly, checking into a shabby apartment. He shows up at a deserted restaurant called Adrian’s, where Rocky is owner-operator. Surprising him with precise details on his bouts with Apollo, Adonis catches The Rock off guard, but not for long. A constrained Rocky says he’s retired and not interested in becoming his trainer. That soon changes as quickly as you can say, How about a jog through the Ninth Street Market?
Cooger has a good time offering glints of Philly location color–both named (Johnny Brenda’s, Electric Factory) and unnamed (Victor Cafe, Max’s Steaks) and, of course, The Philadelphia Art Museum. Far more crucial to the film’s success is the plausibility of its main characters, and that of key supporting roles like Bianca (a very fine Tessa Thompson, Dear White People), a singer who lives downstairs from Adonis. She rises above typical boxing movie love interests. Not only do Cooger and co-screenwriter Aaron Covington write her as a flesh-and-blood actual character but Thompson portrays a rare screen presence in bringing her to life.
Oh yeah, there’s boxing here too, and it’s rather well-rendered. By the time the Bill Conti Rocky theme makes a sneaky appearance, the film will have you under its thrall as Adonis (now calling himself Creed) fights the big bully Pretty Ricky Conlan (Anthony Bellew) on his home turf in England. Although he has his own troubles to contend with, Rocky talks him through a rough patch. Bianca rushes the ring and Mary Anne, by now a converted believer, is watching on her giant screen in Tinseltown. Somehow it all seems so familiar yet so different this time around.