SouthPawzzz

Hype – is what I felt when I first saw the trailer for this movie, I mean… just look at the movie posters! Look at that photo! Maybe it’s just a thing I have for boxing movies, but damn did that trailer look good. I had only just seen the Creed trailer too, so I anticipate reviewing the two comparatively. I think there’s some sort of trigger in me that makes me weak for boxing movies.

I am fresh from just having watched and reviewed Creed, so I now have a relatively straightforward comparison to make. Southpaw definitely has a more intense fight scene and I would even say there was more than double the drama through the story plot. Gyllenhaal has a more dramatic role to handle where he goes through the accidental death of his wife, which he fails to overcome alone and watches the world around him crumble as he falls into a pit that he eventually has to climb out of. He was perfect for this character with his proven acting range and incredible dedication to beefing up the way he did from a much weakened state in which he transformed himself for in his more eery role as Louis in Nightcrawler. Some could even say the boxing was the background to a dramatic story and that it was a metaphor to him fighting for his live back, fighting for the custody of his daughter after the loss of his wife. The acting was strong in this movie and brought plenty of emotions and progressive character development within Gyllenhaal’s character himself, Whitaker and also between father and daughter.

As I said at the start, I was particulary drawn to the movie by the dramatic trailer hype of a boxing movie where a man is out for revenge of his murdered wife in the boxing ring (how insanely dramatic does that sound already!) But large portions of the movie did drag on and left me checking the time. Jake Gyllenhaal is undoubtedly one of my favourite actors with diverse range; just that there is only so much self-pitying one can do in a movie before you start cringing. Overkill. Nonetheless, I favoured Southpaw over Creed.

Baby Creed

Creed does little to bring back ties with the original Rocky movies besides the name and character references and of course Stallone himself. But don’t let that take away the limelight that Michael B. Jordan is basking in right now, a tremendously talented actor that evidently works hard for this role. There was much hype for myself when I first watched the movie trailer and I really liked the idea of a spin-off movie that had as much promise as any other of Sly’s movies in recent years.

The backstory of Jordan’s character, Adonis was not what I expected. I appreciated that they did little to delve into it too much and the large portion of the movie was Adonis focusing his efforts to chase his dream, whilst overcoming the legacy that his father left behind, brushing away the mentioning of Apollo Creed at almost every opportunity. The movie paced well, even though it was apparent that Jordan had already bulked up well prior to the training montage under Balboa, so there looked like little physical progression. And by no means was the montage as epic as it’s predecessors. One of the main things I had to point out is that I didn’t particularly enjoy the 2 main fights in the movie. They did little to rile up the audience in the intense way that the old Rocky movies did. I mean, the main antagonist of the movie is scouse! He’s also a massive chav who supports Everton!! (Which at this point I began to doubt this movie and its credibility.) Sure, the quality was crisp and details of the cuts and bruises were done well during the fights, but there was something about the camera work I didn’t enjoy. There were many close up shots that showed very little fatigue from the fighters which took the realism away. There was little dramatic emotion in the fights that usually make these types of movies memorable. In terms of awe, the recent Southpaw movie gets more brownie points from me.

Oh I almost overlooked the love story within the movie. It was so lackluster you might just miss it. I more touched when Rocky visited the graves of Adrian and Paulie. Enough said really.

This movie drew more heads through its name alone, but gave the audience a worthwhile watch with some great performances through the main cast. It was definitely no Rocky film, and despite the very well made trailer, I liked the idea of this movie more than the movie itself unfortunately.