Creed (2015)
Creed, the seventh film featuring Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky Balboa, is so surprising that it would be easy to overrate it. Directed by Ryan Coogler, whose Fruitvale Station signaled the emergence of a brilliant young filmmaker, it’s a hugely entertaining film of great passion and compassion, more about what it is to be a man than what it is to win a fight. Coogler is in the vanguard of a new movement in American cinema, making black characters central figures in stories that get marketed to everyone. It’s a remarkable political moment: films like Fruitvale and Dear White People are replacing the mainstream portrayal of black people (so often relegated to comic, criminal, or sidekick roles) with fully drawn characterizations that don’t depend on white saviors, jokes, or spectacular action. Here is the surprise: such a film is Creed. The first Rocky film without the Italian Stallion’s moniker in the title, the name itself evokes a way of thinking about the world: a belief in integrity, self-discipline, honoring community, and doing what’s right. In the two best Rocky films (the first one, and Rocky Balboa from 2006), winning is for losers—or at least victory in the ring is its own reward. What matters is dignity.
Rocky was a post-Watergate story about poverty, about love and, most of all, about self-respect. It is a beautifully paced movie, with director John G. Avildsen showing the understanding of film grammar that was so characteristic of 1970s cinema. It featured Bill Conti's unforgettable music and its supporting characters were as well-written as the protagonist. Just think of the parrot-like squawk of Burgess Meredith's Mickey the trainer, or Burt Young's angry meat-packer, Paulie, or Talia Shire's delicately nuanced reading of female loneliness as Adrian, the object of Rocky's affection.
Most of all, the film had the courage of its convictions: Rocky loses the climactic fight against the Ali-esque Apollo Creed, but is more validated as a man than ever before. Of course, he also won the hearts of an audience recently betrayed by a president (Nixon) who was unable to accept that honest failure could be an honorable way to go out of the ring. For Rocky, going the distance was more important than getting the prize.
Creed updates the theme, becoming a story about masculinity and integrity in the era of #BlackLivesMatter—directed like an opera, acted like a Samuel Beckett play. The dialogue is sparse enough to feel real, the emotional beats are earned, and the social context authentic. Adonis Johnson, Apollo Creed’s son is first seen as a child in a juvenile detention center, and carries a secret burden that anyone who ever wondered if they were meant to be here will identify with. It’s a fantastic central performance from Michael B. Jordan, who embodies without melodrama the pain and desire of a lost soul trying to find himself. Tessa Thompson ably supports in a role that’s somewhat better written than most female leads; she’s not just a love interest, but a character with real agency and nuance (although the inevitable romance is compelling, and has one of the loveliest first kiss scenes in the movies). And then there’s Stallone, usually underrated as an actor, here recreating the character he created as if his life depended on it. Vulnerable to age and an imperfect body, his latest Rocky has his integrity, and that’s about it. He needs carrying, like we all sometimes do. He’s not invincible, and the fact that his most supportive friend as he enters twilight turns out to be a young black dude signals the richest seam of meaning in this new Creed. It’s not just about dignity, but community; it’s not just about doing the right thing, but racial reconciliation; it’s a crowd-pleasing, artful film that imagines the world as we might dream it could be.