CREED

CREED 

CREED - A+

Finally got around to watching CREED aka ROCKY VII and while ROCKY III still remains my favorite of the franchise, this maybe #2. 

Like all Rocky films, the heart of this film was its story. The relationships between people and the struggles they overcome together. I appreciated how the focus of the film was never lost throughout the story. A love interest was added, without taking away from the central core that gives the film its strength. As a writer and as a story lover in general, I appreciated this. Most films aren't able to balance the sub-story with the main story especially when the sub-story is of a romantic level. CREED did an excellent job of this, and deserves to be recognized for it.

When I sat down to watch this, I went into it thinking that Adonis/Donny "Hollywood" Creed would be an unlikable character that would go through a series of dramatic events to eventually win me over. Instead, he was extremely likable from the get go, with few flaws. I appreciated this as well, creating a hero from the start, and building upon his likability as the film progressed, rather than take the easy, cliched route of starting from scratch.

I usually don't give enough credit to makeup artist, but the makeup artist in this film deserve a lot of praise. They made Stallone age appropriately as his cancer worsened. Not sure if they did or not, but the makeup was so good, that alone deserved some awards.

The acting was good. Michael B Jordan, like the NBA star who shares his name took a lot of shots, and he made some and he missed some. More so he missed very few, and made a lot. A few scenes he didn't seem as passionate and motivated, but in others he nailed with precise precision. Hope to see him in more stuff.

By this point, Rocky Balboa is as much Sylvester Stallone as Stallone is him. Not much more to say about it than that. The character plays the actor.

For having no prior acting experience, Tony Bellew did a pretty good job of playing the antagonist.

It was fun to see Phylicia Rashad on the screen in something unrelated to her role as Clair Huxtable.

Great movie and it'll soon be bought and added to my collection to make me a proud owner of all seven films.

I would say this needs to be the stopping point, because I find it hard to believe there is enough of a story to add to the continuation of the ROCKY legacy, but I said that after ROCKY BALBOA too.

And, as much as I liked ROCKY BALBOA, I like CREED a little bit more. Only thing missing was a memorable monologue.