Creed (2015)

By God, Rocky is back and so is the gritty, haunted, beautiful city Philadelphia that I still call home –- though I’ve long been gone and live in the sticks –- in “Creed,” the seventh “Rocky” film. 

Let’s not talk about parts 5 or 6. This is Creed’s story, not Apollo (Carl Weathers), but his illegitimate son’s, Adnois, played by Michael B. Jordan (“FruitvaleStation”). 

Adnois was born after his father died (killed by Drago in “IV,” recall?) yet has the burn to fight, and as a child he does that in juvie cells until the wife of his father, not his mother (Phylicia Rashad), saves him. Now an adult, Adnois fights bloodspots in shit Mexican rings at night and plays L.A. banker at day.  Until he quits the legit gig and goes to Philadelphia. Money? Not interested.

He wants to escape his father’s shadow, but goes to the one man who knew his father best, Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone), the former champ, now a restaurant owner facing mortality.

Rocky refuses Adnois at first, but soon relents, training Adnois as Mickey (Burgess Meredith) did for Rocky 40 years ago. 

It all could be cliché, Ryan Coogler’s film, but it’s not. Coogler is a man who gets “Rocky,” never a film about the American Dream, but all those on the outside, the pissed upon in our Trickle Down Economy. I love the film “Rocky,” watch it yearly, and remember those Kensington streets well, my childhood church is there. I was baptized in Kensington. My grandparents are from there.

Rocky’s neighborhood. I know ’El, and Coogler knows Philly is as much a part of “Rocky” as the Italian Stallion, that the city is fucked and amazing, and that Rocky was a fuck up going nowhere until he found Mickey and Adrian (Talia Shire), the former who trained him, the latter who saved him. Otherwise Rocky would have ended up dead or in prison. 

Adnois is of the same cloth. A fuck up, stearing wildly who rejected easy success, he is trained by Rocky, and saved my neighbor Bianca (Tessa Thompson), a musician going deaf. That could be melodrama bullshit, but Coogler plays it real: No matter how hard you work, life will fuck you, that’s reality. 

I will not divulge the rest of the film. Yes, a big bout happens against a world-renowned portrait, but Coogler paints in all grays. Villains? None, just uneasy ethics and wrong choices, and men seeking redemption, fighting inner demons. 

Jordan is magnetic in this film, as he was in “Fruitvale.” And Stallone here is better than he has been in decades, back to the average guy in a rowhouse in “Rocky,” not the superhero bullshit that came in the later flag waver films. Fame, money, all the capitalistic is shit, fake, the golden calf. Adrian was Rocky’s life and glory.

That final scene in “Rocky,” him defeated, but defiant, kills me now, because all he wants is Talia. To hold her. 

She’s gone now, and Rocky is slipping fast, and those Philly Art Museum stairs are now near impossible. You have seen the trailers. You will cry here. (Stallone, you beautiful bastard, you are forgiven for “Grudge Match.”) 

This is the story of a rising star indeed in Jordan and Creed, off screen and on, but it’s also the story of one guy and one city that will cling on, and walk on. Grit and shit and beauty, and contradictions, and Coogler plays those contradictions beautifully, his hero a man who refuses his father’s name, but plays projected video of the man’s 40-year-old boxing clips, fighting him on screen, he in the place of Rocky, punching and lunging at his own past, his dead father. Best scene of the film.

What an incredible film. Ludwig Goransson’s score is riveting and borrows motifs beautifully from Bill Conti’s original. Coogler deserves all the credit. He’s made a film that’s no franchise reboot, but a love letter that floored me. Jordan will be a star. Coogler a legend. Stallone could retire triumphant, hands raised in the air becuase he has finally given his character eternal greatness. 

This is the series I love, the city I love, and damn it did my hear good t see this. I need to get back home. Coogler, thak you. Jordan, thank you. Cinematographer Maryse Alberti, I thank you. A