We’re big fans of the Rocky films and our slightly cynical heart has had to fight that reality for a little while now, which brings us to the prospect of Rocky VII, which has cleverly been re-branded as simply Creed. It’s incredible that the series has managed to carry on for so long, but it’s also sort of impressive that Sylvester Stallone is still coming back to the ongoing life of The Italian Stallion, Rocky Balboa (honestly, it’s hard not to well up just a little at the merest mention of one of our childhood heroes) no matter how old he gets.
The good news though is that it went down very well with critics and review aggregators, so if the trailer below wasn’t enough to persuade you to catch the film, the abundance of positive reviews should do the trick (our own included), coupled with a fair amount of nostalgia for the legendary boxing character. If that isn’t enough, the film presents a whole new hero for us to get behind in Apollo Creed’s illegitimate son, Adonis “Donnie” Johnson, and possibly a spin-off direction to breath new life into one of the greatest sporting movie franchises of all time.
Release date
Cinema: Creed arrived on the big screen in the US for the Thanksgiving Day rush on the 25th November 2015, performing well against competition from The Good Dinosaur and Victor Frankenstein. It went on to get a UK release date of Friday the 15th January 2015, which saw it going up against both The Revenant and Room.
DVD, Blu-ray and digital download: The home entertainment release date in the UK is the 16th May 2016, following up on the earlier US launch on the 1st March 2016.
Story
Essentially, it turns out that Appollo Creed had a bit of a fling prior to his heartbreaking death at the hands of the relentless ferocity of Ivan Drago in Rocky IV and Donnie was the illegitimate offspring that came as a result. When he’s taken in by Apollo’s wife, Mary Anne, after a troubled youth, it looks like he’s been given the chance to get his life back on track, but when he goes on to decide he wants to follow in his father’s footsteps, he faces a fair amount of push-back from her, as well as the memory of his dad to live up to.
Luckily, Rock’s on hand to give him a bit of a nudge in the right direction, after a fair amount of cajoling, with some of his boxing skills and a few words of wisdom. However, with everyone close to Balboa gone he probably needs the new Creed as much as the young contender needs him. Cue the music, tee up the chicken hunt, break out the cow carcasses and settle down for another training montage as Donnie faces his own road to the top of the boxing pecking order to face current champ, “Pretty” Ricky Conlan.
Cast
Inevitably, Sylvester Stallone (Expendables) returns to the role of Rocky Balboa, taking his character further into his later years following the previous film. Michael B. Jordan (Fantastic Four (2015)) stars as Adonis “Donnie” Johnson and the cast also includes Tessa Thompson (Selma) as his singer love interest Bianca, Phylicia Rashad (The Cosby Show) as Apollo’s widow, Mary Anne Creed, and Wood Harris (Ant Man (2015)) as Tony “Little Duke” Evers, son of former Rocky and Apollo trainer, Tony Sr. There’s also a little real world boxing might from Tony “Bomber” Bellow as champ, Conlan.
Production
Unlike all of the other Rocky movies, Creed hasn’t been written by Sylvester Stallone. Instead, it’s director Ryan Coogler (Fruitvale Station) and his co-writer Aaron Covington that have penned the screenplay. Maryse Alberti (The Wrestler) was the director of photography, Michael P. Shawver and Claudia Castello co-editors and composer Ludwig Göransson took care of the film score.
Blu-ray and DVD special features
The Blu-ray combo pack contains the following special features:
- Know The Past, Own The Future
- Becoming Adonis
- Deleted Scenes
The Creed DVD contains the same extras.
Review
Despite the rave reviews and our ever present love of Rocky films, we weren’t 100% convinced by the prospect of Creed. The trailer below didn’t do enough to inspire us, but the good news is that they held enough back for the full might of the film for the release and what you get at the end is a solid rebirth for the series.
The other big point for us was that so many of the previous films have been built a little on the strength of Rocky’s opposition, whether it’s Apollo Creed, Clubber Lang or Ivan Drago, and while Bellow is meaty, he isn’t quite as iconic as his predecessors. The name – “Pretty” Ricky Conlan – isn’t particularly good either and for anyone based in the UK, you’ll probably find his Liverpudlian accent to be too much of a juxtaposition to the glory of Rocky. Combine that with the fact that the location of the championship bout is at Everton’s Goodison Park and you’re left a little underwhelmed in the final third. However, the deeper story of Rocky’s old age and Donnie’s young love gives the film a down-to-earth quality that is hard to fault.
