Creed

The concept of a reboot or spinoff is one typically associated with studio efforts to capitalize on existing intellectual property and built-in audiences.  The ROCKY franchise is one, however, which defied expectations from the beginning.   Producers Irwin Winkler and Henry Chartoff nearly bankrupted themselves, putting personal assets up as collateral, to see that the original 1976 film was made.  Inspired by the boxing match in which underdog Chuck Wepner lasted fifteen rounds with World Heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali, ROCKY won Best Picture at the Academy® Awards and earned Sylvester Stallone a Best Screenplay nomination.

After exhausting the possibilities, driving the David vs. Goliath parable completely into the ground, the ROCKY franchise has re-emerged from its own ashes with renewed purpose.  Writer/director Ryan Coogler, whose FRUITVALE STATION explored the largely American phenomenon of police shootings of unarmed black teenagers, gives us CREED, a story about Apollo’s (Carl Weathers) estranged son, Adonis (Michael B. Jordan).  In the black community, nearly 70% of children are born to single mothers.  The impact is felt most notably by young black males who are three times as likely to receive the maximum sentence for the most trivial of crimes.  In the film, Coogler deconstructs the problem for a captive audience through the common thread of sport.

Moving through the foster home system and juvenile detention, Apollo’s illegitimate son Adonis is taken in by his widow, Mary Anne (Phylicia Rashad).  Jumping forward several years: His first job unfulfilling, he travels outside of the country to fight in off-the-radar boxing matches.  When Adonis leaves his job and decides to go professional, i.e. “the plunge” as is necessary in a street-to-superstar arc, his Los Angeles-based trainers vow to mire his career by revealing his privileged lineage.  He departs for Philadelphia to track down Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) in a bid to be trained by his father’s worthiest adversary.  There ought to be no question that he convinces the aging Balboa who comes to see it as an obligation to the friend whose life he failed to save.  Adonis, however, isn’t doing this for anyone but himself, and sets out to ignite a legacy of his own.

As with the original film, the primary confrontation resides in a somewhat inexplicable 1000:1 shot—the World Heavyweight Champion, “Pretty” Ricky Conlan (actual former light heavyweight champion Tony Bellew), is paroled from prison.  His reputation tarnished, Conlan’s manager sees the up-and-coming Adonis as an opportunity for his client to regain stature.

The film does pay homage to the usual beats of a ROCKY film, including underdog origins, the moonshot chance to stardom, the training montage with kids chasing after the hero (this time on motorbikes), and the insanely drawn out 12-round bout—most fights end within the first three or four, except of course for the Wepner-Ali bout.  However,  this is all simply the hook with which Coogler sneaks in a narrative about overcoming toxic masculinity.

Adonis begins dating his neighbor, the bohemian Bianca (Tessa Thompson).  What Hollywood director would make a movie in which the hero braids his girlfriend’s hair or confides to her his fear of failure?  In the original ROCKY, producers Winkler and Chartoff put up additional collateral to shoot a scene the studio would have cut: The night before the fight with Apollo, cradled by Adrian, Rocky sobs in self-doubt.  Films, most notably those featuring black protagonists, either avoid feminist undertones or imbue the lead male character with unresolved aggressions to sidestep exposing the raw nerve of the fragile male ego.

In Coogler’s take, Adonis is prone to outbursts, but we see the consequences and the resolution as Bianca provides the necessary counter-perspective. Directors endlessly riff off Lisa Bonet’s erudite academic from A Different World, a trope which seems to only serve to underscore the dysfunctional black male.  As is often the case, the female lead is no better fleshed out in this film than in any other.  I would have liked to see their dynamic unfold a little further but in the vacuum of intellectually bankrupt Hollywood flicks, I’ll take it.

Behind the camera, Maryse Alberti (THE WRESTLER) has scored a KO for women in cinematography.  I revisited the older films to refresh my memory of how the boxing was blocked and shot.  It was very conventional medium shots, wide shots and occasional Dutch angles from the corners of the ring, sticking to the 180 degree rule.   In CREED, Alberti has a Steadicam weaving in, out and around the fighters on the ring, fluidly shifting between the referee’s and fighters’ perspectives.  This increases the tension considerably, and is accompanied by various touches that have a sports coverage feel.  The filmmakers understand their audience, and then elevate them past the mimicry to the art.

Lastly, a tip of the hat to Sylvester Stallone.  Buoyed and made complacent by success, a fact which he attempted to explore in the fifth and sixth installments of this franchise, the Stallion seems to have accepted that he’s been put out to pasture.  This is no feeble attempt to rekindle spent firewood at the altar of 80s action shlock.  Rocky Balboa is now the age Mickey (Burgess Meredith) was in the first film almost exactly forty years ago and, in spite of heavy cosmetic surgery, he looks it and feels it.

There’s a twist, which I won’t spoil, but you can see it coming a mile away.  That’s not really the point.  The point is that the white male egotist has learned to age gracefully and willingly pass on the embers of his success to be the kindling of another’s.  I’m not going to pat him on the back and opine like a shill how magnanimous Stallone is.  I am going to say that the stubborn mule has finally learned when to throw in the towel.  In doing so, he’s lending his success to a young group of people who, in the aftershocks of all the police brutality we’ve seen in the past year, need more than ever a positive message:

Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.