In 1976, the original Rocky movie was released, and became an instant classic. After the original film, six more movies followed, all covering the boxing career of Rocky Balboa. 39 years later, another film is being added to the Rocky collection, Creed.
This film once again follows the life of Rocky Balboa, who is now an old man in his sixties, and has retired from boxing. Rocky is now retired and owns a restaurant in Philly named after his deceased wife Adrian. The movie then transitions to the life of Adonis “Donnie” Johnson, the son of Apollo Creed. Donnie quits his job at a security firm, and decides to pursue his dream of being a professional boxer. Considering that her husband lost his life in the ring, Donnie’s mother is totally against the idea of him going back into boxing, but despite her fears, Donnie decides to pursue his dream anyways. When he fails to get into the prestigious LA boxing academy, Donnie decides to head out to Philly to track down his dad’s old rival and best friend, Rocky.
Donnie finds Rocky at his restaurant in South Philly, and tries to convince Rocky to get back into the boxing game, as his trainer. Having suffered brain damage during his career, Balboa is reluctant to get back into boxing, but after some convincing, he finally agrees to train Donnie. Rocky trains Donnie at the Front Street gym with many of his longtime friends from his days in the game of boxing, and eventually, Rocky is able to land Donnie a fight against a local fighter from Philadelphia.
After defeating this boxer with ease, word of Donnie gets out, and people begin to hear that he is the real son of the legendary Apollo Creed. After this news gets out, Rocky gets a call from the promoter for the world light heavyweight champion “Pretty” Ricky Conlan, who is due to be forced into retirement by an impending prison term. Conlan plans to make Donnie his last fight before he retires, but there is one circumstance. Donnie must change his name to Adonis “Hollywood Donnie” Creed. At first, Donnie declines, as he wants to make his own name in the boxing world, but he eventually does agree to these terms.
While Rocky is training for the fight, he discovers he is diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He does not want to undergo chemo therapy, after watching his wife Adrian suffer through it and to not have it help her at all. His diagnosis and the fact that his best friend and brother-in-law Paulie Pennino (Adrian’s brother) has now also passed away in addition to Adrian, Apollo and his old trainer Mickey Goldmill, force Rocky to dig deep with in himself and confront many of his inner fears.
After months of hard training, the date of the fight has finally arrived, and Donnie will have his chance to show the boxing world what he can do on the big stage. As the fight goes on, we see Donnie fight with heart and give it everything he has, but in the end, Conlan gets the better of Donnie, and wins the fight. Although Donnie loses, he showed that he is a talented boxer, and that he will have a bright future in boxing. At the end of the movie, we also see that Rocky has decided to undergo Chemo therapy for his lymphoma, and is doing much better than he previously was.
While filming Creed, director Ryan Coogler did not just want this movie to be about boxing. He wanted to depict the struggles that Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) is going through with growing and losing all the people he cares about. We see him also struggle with being diagnosed with cancer and having to fight that, but with the help of Donnie, he is able to overcome these struggles, and realize that there are still things worth living for. As for Donnie (Michael B. Jordan), we see him struggle with himself as he seems angry at his father for leaving him before he is born. As the movie goes on, and with help from Rocky, Donnie is able to realize that his father did not want to leave him, and that he would much rather be here with him right now. After this, Donnie is able to step out from the shadow of his father’s legacy, and be able to live at peace with himself, and focus on his boxing career.
This movie is an action packed film with intense fight scenes, but also deals with heart wrenching conflicts within the characters. As we see Rocky struggle with losing all his friends and family, the viewer feels sad for him, and watching Donnie deal with not having a father also makes the viewer sad. But, in the end, watching them conquer everything and be successful makes the viewer happy, and this film is a definitely a great addition to the infamous Rocky Series.