Creed is an astonishingly good movie. No kidding, it’s actually rather mystifying how something could simultaneously be so corny yet so fresh and exciting… but it is.
And before you say, “Yeah but isn’t it still another Rocky movie?”, let me point out that it may very well be the BEST Rocky movie ever, made with no small credit going to one of the finest directing jobs of the year from Ryan (Fruitvale Station) Coogler .
So much of being a good film director is about the exercising of taste and Coogler’s taste is reflected admirably in everything from the ridiculously appealing cast to the discipline of editing and use of music. To that last point, the director waits, waits, waits to deliver the nine musical notes that sent the audience I was a part of into a frenzy. I turned around to catch the crowd’s reaction and can say unequivocally that the cheers and high-fives represented the most collective gasp of satisfaction I’ve seen all year from a movie audience.
Let me get back to the cast as it reenforces my claims about Coogler’s taste. Let’s be honest: While the original Rocky film is a classic, the supporting characters (Adrian, Paulie, et al) were not exactly people you wanted to bring around for Christmas dinner. This cast, by contrast, uniformly POPS off the screen with charisma and attractiveness. Michael B Jordan is going to be a great movie star and is the first to prove there’s life after the last Fantastic Four reboot and (love-interest) Tessa Thompson is someone else we’ll see a lot more of.
And then there’s Sylvester Stallone himself; bless this movie for reminding the smug among us that Sly is a national treasure we may have taken for granted.
You don’t have to like the previous Rocky films, you don’t have to like Stallone, you don’t even have to like boxing at all and you’ll still have a blast seeing this.
Definitely go.
(Loudinni specializes in movie reviews under 500 words– sans spoilers.)
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