CREED

2.5 stars (out of 5)

This, the seventh Rocky movie after the late-on and lame rebooting sequel Rocky Balboa in 2006, is as laboured and lumbering as expected, and so is Sylvester Stallone. However, this is the first film in the series which he didn’t write, leaving the honours to co-writer/director Ryan Coogler and his co-writer Aaron Covington, both of whom are ludicrously big fans and want to keep it all going for another 40ish years. Yikes.

As a kid in 1998 orphan Adonis Johnson (played early on by Alex Henderson) is rescued from an institution by Mary Anne Creed (Phylicia Rashad from The Cosby Show!), who tells him that he’s the product of an affair enjoyed by her late hubby Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers in photos and flashbacks) but takes him in as her own kid anyway (naaaaaw). As an adult, where he’s now played by Michael B Jordan of director Coogler’s Fruitvale Station, Adonis decides to give up being a lawyer in favour of boxing (aren’t they sort of the same thing?), and seeks out Rocky Balboa (Stallone, really playing a secondary character here and made to look old, ill and turtle-like).

Rocky’s glad to train him and proves to be such a great guy that he lets the boy stay in his Philly home and helps keep Adonis’ relation to the heroic Apollo a secret, as our titular lad works hard and on the side romances a singer named Bianca (Tessa Thompson), who seems like a smart and independent sort of gal at first but ultimately proves powerless against Adonis’ sweet talk and oiled muscles. And when Adonis’ bloodline becomes known, everything leads to a bigtime match with feared Liverpudlian basher ‘Pretty’ Ricky Conlan (Tony Bellew), as a long list of clichés are counted off by the dozen and the plot plods onward to a whopping, butt-numbing 133 minutes.

Irksomely epic in its dreariness and cheesiness, this is nevertheless surely untouchable as Rocky fans will love the thing anyway, and it’ll probably lead to a whole new bunch of thumping sequels like Creed II, Creed III, Creed IV, Creed V, Free Creed, Creed’s Return, Creed’s Revenge, Creed Takes Manhattan, Creed Versus Godzilla, Creed Versus ISIS and so forth. Hey, the possibilities are endless!!!