BOOM December 2015 | Page 32

MOVIE REVIEW In Creed, Rocky's Back, As a Mentor, Not a Fighter A t a recent screening of Creed, as the familiar fanfare of Bill Conti's beloved Rocky score signaled the start of the final round of the big fight, the audience burst into spontaneous applause. This was no sneak-preview crowd, primed with free admission and popcorn, but a room full of critics and journalists armored in professional skepticism. A cynic might say that the cheering was a Pavlovian reflex set off by a piece of commercial entertainment in the hands of a skilled, manipulative director. This cynic, however, was too busy choking up and clapping to form the thought.In 2015, whether by coincidence or by the mysterious movements of the dialectic, a bunch of semi-dormant franchises have come roaring back to pop-cultural life, enrolling legions of new fans and managing both to transcend and to exploit the nostalgia of Gen-X old-timers. There was Mad Max: Fury Road and then Jurassic World. The next Star Wars arrives in a few weeks. In the meantime we have Creed, which writes another chapter in the saga of Rocky Balboa and which is something that Italian Stallion's devotees have not seen in a long time, perhaps since the original Rocky way back in 1976: a terrific boxing movie.And a great deal more besides. The six Rocky movies before Creed, to put it kindly, have had their ups and downs. From humble beginnings (and an improbable best picture Oscar, beating out All the President's Men, Network and Taxi Driver), the series rose in the 1980s to heights of grandiosity and preposterousness before stumbling into irrelevance. But don't call Creed a comeback. After the folly of "Rocky Balboa," the former champ is out of the ring for good. He's taken up the role, essential to the genre, of the gruff, grizzled trainer. And Sylvester Stallone, while happy to steal a scene every now and then, cedes the limelight to Michael B Jordan. Jordan plays a talented light-heavyweight whose rapid ascent in the sport is fueled by an identity crisis. Even his name is in question. The love child of Apollo Creed, Rocky's erstwhile nemesis and eventual best friend, the young man is unsure whether to embrace or spurn the legacy of a father he never knew. He calls himself Adonis (or sometimes Donnie) Johnson, and his background is a complicated tangle of deprivation and privilege. He grew up in foster homes and juvenile detention centers before being adopted by Apollo's widow, Mary Anne (Phylicia Rashad), who raised him in Los Angeles opulence and kept him away from the boxing ring.But of course you 32 | BOOM