Creed knows where it’s coming from

By Katherine Monk

You know you want it. You’ve been waiting for it ever since you ran up the longest set of stairs in your neighbourhood and held your arms aloft in triumph as the angelic chorus cooed “Getting Stronger.”

There is no better self-improvement montage than the one that featured Sylvester Stallone in his grey sweats and longshoreman’s cap running through urban Philly. A surging snippet of feel-good footage that kickstarted the personal fitness movement with an egg yolk breakfast and a challenge to catch a chicken, Rocky showed us any one can be a champ if they have the will to work hard and the strength to get up after a pummelling.

Rocky was the American Dream distilled, which explains why the original movie walked away with the Best Picture statuette (against Taxi Driver) and spawned a series of sequels, each one getting progressively worse until Stallone gave us Rocky Balboa, a movie postscript that showed us how Rocky’s life ended up — back in the same neighbourhood, running an Italian restaurant that wears its sincerity on its red and white checkered table cloths.

With the Italian Stallion chomping clover in the proverbial pasture, the Rocky story was wrapped up with a bow because no one wants to see old fighters try again – unless they have a really good reason to get back in the ring.

And thanks to writer-director Ryan Coogler (Fruitvale Station), Rocky Balboa’s resurrection as a character doesn’t feel like a cheap cash grab, it feels like a dramatically natural progression and a smart way to look at the same themes Rocky addressed four decades ago through a whole new set of eyes.

This time, it’s the story of Adonis Johnson Creed (Michael B. Jordan), the bastard son of Rocky’s finest opponent, Apollo Creed (played back in the day by Carl Weathers).

Rendered an orphan after his mother died, young Adonis is put in child protection services and goes from group home to group home until he’s rescued by Mary-Ann (Phylicia Rashad), widow of the father he never knew.

Under Mary-Ann’s care, he grows into a handsome and well-educated young man with plenty of opportunity, but Adonis can’t stop fighting. He agrees to sketchy fights in Mexico and trains himself until he quits his white collar job to chase his no collar dream.

He asks every trainer in Los Angeles to take him on, but all they’re all loyal to his MA: They know she doesn’t want him to be a fighter, so Adonis has to move somewhere far away — someplace where they may not know he’s the son of Apollo Creed, the Ali-like character in the Rocky timeline.

We know where he’s going to end up before we see the signs that say Cheese Steak because the only person who could possibly train Adonis Creed is the man who once beat his unbeatable father: Rocky Balboa.

That’s all you need to know about the plot because the moment Rocky and Adonis meet, we’re moving through the mirror image of the original film — in almost every way. Rocky was poor and white. Adonis is rich and black. But neither man found his place until they got into the ring.

And that’s why this movie works a little bit of magic, because for all the differences between them, they both share the same core dilemma of not knowing who they really are until they’re stripped down to a pair of satin shorts and canvas shoes.

Both men need to fight, but in Coogler’s sensitive script, fighting becomes more of a metaphor for life and personal affirmation than a straight-up action device.

It’s a sweet turn in a surprisingly sweet movie, and by putting the emotional side of the drama front and centre, Coogler forces his characters to drop the gloves, and be vulnerable.

Stallone seems to relish the chance to show his acting chops as he assumes the role of aging trainer and arthritic corner man, and he’s truly wonderful to watch. Tugging on the heart sleeves as the widower who still burns a candle for Adrian, we buy into the entirely manly landscape where testosterone ebbs and flows as naturally as the tides and where father-son bonds may have nothing to do with blood.

Jordan and Stallone trade great moments through muffled feelings and half-spoken sentences, ensuring we never feel the manipulative hand of Hollywood sliding up their boxers. The movie is subtle in many of the places it could have been obvious, which doesn’t just make it feel more authentic — it makes it more suspenseful because we’re engaged at several levels.

We’re also waiting for all the Rocky iconography to come full circle, a feat Coogler accomplishes through his mirror images — recreating familiar scenes, only from a slightly different perspective, making them feel fresh without feeling forced.

So yes, we get to watch Jordan run through the streets of urban Philly in his sweats, and yes, we get to watch him catch a chicken, and yes, we get to watch him take punch after punch in slow-motion.

Coogler essentially shadow boxes with the original, and in the process, rediscovers the power of a classic that made us all believe we could be champions if we had the strength to get back up after a beating.

@katherinemonk

THE EX-PRESS, December 1, 2015

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