Hello and welcome to the 12/22/15 edition of The Comic Shop Blog!
The holidays are upon us and winter has not yet descended on us Hoosiers so we must count ourselves lucky that we have such wonderful weather.
I decided to provide a review for "Creed" for a couple of reasons. The first being that director Ryan Coogler is a top name being thrown around for Marvel's upcoming "Black Panther" movie, Michael B. Jordan is an actor I enjoy (and he was Johnny Storm if you want to get down to it), and also it's my blog so sue me. Lets hit it in the traditional TCSB Good, Bad, and Ugly review style. I warn you there may be potential spoilers so be warned.
The Good:
The thing that I enjoyed most about "Creed" was the thing that enjoyed most about "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" it was that it introduced new characters and new life into their prospective franchises without being cookie cutter retread filler. Adonis Johnson (Michael B. Jordan) is a new perspective for us in the Rocky universe, and it is really refreshing that they don't use the same archetypes as the original movies.
One of the major revelations in this movie is that Rocky is in the fight of his life with non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, and initially it was very jarring to your humble blogger/huge Rocky fan to see one of his heroes drop his gloves and accept defeat. That's right Rocky Balboa who through sheer heart and will of human spirit defeated Apollo Creed, partial blindness, B.A. Barackus, Ivan Drago, Communism itself, and old age chose not to seek treatment for his cancer. As I said it was quite jarring, but it was a wonderful way to make Adonis a relatable character as he reacted as a Rocky fan might with disgust at Balboa's lack of fight. It was a well thought out way to make the audience feel a connection with Adonis's plight.
There are a lot of little things that are great as every character has understandable motivations. Obviously Adonis is the main story, but his love interest Bianca (Tessa Thompson) also provides a tragic story as she is a musician that faces the eventuality of complete hearing loss.
The fight scenes in "Creed" are about the best that I've seen in anything related to the Rocky-verse. It features an over-the-shoulder look that makes the action quick cut and impactful. The pacing of the fights themselves are quicker and with less of the slow-mo dramatic effects of the previous Rocky movies.
Adonis is really the polar opposite Rocky character. While both had a rough up brining Adonis was adopted by Creed's widow and lived a good life eventually holding down a successful professional career with no real need to fight other than that it legitimized him as heir to the Creed surname. As I said earlier I found it very refreshing that they took things that had almost become cliche's from previous installments and turned them on their heads.
Bad/Ugly: There isn't a lot for this category here. I initially hated that Rocky wasn't trying to survive, but as I said it was turned into a story positive by the end. I think maybe the way they unveiled the Creed surname would be my main complaint as it was just the result of sour grapes from a rival boxing manager.
I know I had more to say about this film; however, I am currently basking in the afterglow of my first viewing of "Star Wars: The Force Awakens".
The review for the the big sequel will be in the very next post here on TCSB.
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