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.
The Ricebin 