‘Creed’ Goes Down For The Count

“Creed” is the spin-off sequel of the “Rocky” franchise where Rocky Balboa has taken on the role of trainer instead of boxer as he brings Adonis Creed, Apollo Creed’s son, under his wing as the next champion in boxing history.

“Creed” is an entertaining boxing movie for fans of the “Rocky” films; Stallone and Jordan’s performances were top notch. However, the story left much to be desired.

The film’s titular character, Creed, was played by Michael B. Jordan while Sylvester Stallone reprised his iconic character of Rocky Balboa in a supporting role.

Jordan carried the movie just as incredibly as Stallone had during his tenure as Balboa. Jordan’s off-screen training gave him credibility and his charismatic personality provided a great new hero for the film franchise.

Stallone, returning as his legendary character, helped provide a dramatic element to the story. His character faced the possible conflict of interest in training his old friend’s son as well as the mental battle of coming to grips with his own mortality as an aging boxer.

Beautifully directed scenes showing a modern-looking Philadelphia were peppered with familiar locations that provided nostalgia to fans of the previous films. The nostalgia helped set-up “Creed” as a sort of next generation “Rocky” film with memorable montage training scenes and brutal fights.

The score of the film was just as inspiring as Bill Conti’s original soundtrack with much of the music serving as a sort of homage to the earlier films.

Unfortunately, the plot played it way too safe overall in terms of narrative and the rest of the supporting cast was uninteresting or underdeveloped.

A romance subplot between Creed and love interest Bianca, played by actress Tessa Thompson, felt too predictable and not as interesting as the rest of the story, despite the fact that Thompson had great chemistry with Jordan.

Rival boxer Rick Conlan, played by Tom Bellew, was a throw away character that barely had enough screen time to provide any real tension to the story besides being the antagonist during the final fight. I think he will go down as the most uninspired boxer in the “Rocky” franchise.

The film pushed so many familiar plot points and nods to the older “Rocky” movies that the more interesting and new elements, like Creed’s father issues or Balboa’s declining health, were not given as much attention as they should have been.

The parallel between Creed and Balboa is obvious; they are both underdogs who work hard to get a shot at a title fight. The similarities between the characters is so strong that this film is basically “Rocky” with a different actor.

If this movie turns into a trilogy, Creed might just end up becoming the modern Balboa instead of standing alone as his own character.

The point of “Creed” appeared to be more about pleasing existing fans of the “Rocky” franchise who wanted a taste of nostalgia instead of breaking the mold with an innovative new character that has an interesting backstory and could prop up a new franchise of films.

“Creed” definitely fell short of the movie it could have been. I suggest waiting for this title to come to DVD or Netflix before watching it.