Sylvester Stallone hands off the Rocky saga to writer-director Ryan Coogler, who makes the aging Italian Stallion the corner man for a younger boxer who is the illegitimate son of his old adversary Apollo Creed. Coogler’s acclaimed debut feature, Fruitvale Station (2013), dealt with the real-life police killing of an unarmed black man in San Francisco, but in keeping with Stallone’s wholesome formula for the Rocky movies, there’s no racial angle here, just a lot of daddy issues. Michael B. Jordan, who played the victim in Fruitvale Station, injects some juice as Adonis Creed, and the muttering Stallone has a few ostensibly touching moments. But anyone hoping the franchise might open out into new thematic territory will be disappointed; this is the same old ritual, from the amped-up training sequences to the climactic title fight with its absurd number of punches landed in every round.
Creed
PG-13 • 2 hours 13 min • 2015
