POP CULTURE FILM REVIEWS BY AMY DIAZ
Creed (PG-13)
The heretofore unknown (and possibly too old to box?) son of Apollo Creed seeks out Rocky Balboa to train him in Creed, the seventh movie in the Rockyverse.
Wikipedia places the fight between Apollo Creed and Ivan Drago in 1985. We’re told in this movie that Adonis Johnson’s (Michael B. Jordan) father died before he was born. That makes him if not yet 30 at least in the neighborhood of 30, which feels a smidge on the old side to be looking to break into boxing. But, hey, this is a Rocky movie; why let the little details get in the way of your fun? The movie actually starts with a young Adonis (Alex Henderson), who knows nothing about his father, in some kind of juvenile hall, locked away in juvy solitary for, of course, fighting. His mother, about whom we eventually learn very little other than that she was a woman with whom Apollo had an affair, has died and Adonis’ life has been mostly legal trouble and group homes. Then, Mary Anne Creed (Phylicia Rashad), Apollo’s widow, shows up to tell him all about Papa Creed. Cut to years later when grown Adonis, who has come to call Mary Anne “Ma,” is gainfully employed in the white-collar world but spending his weekends fighting in matches in Mexico and his after-work hours shadowboxing while watching old footage of his dad (played in old footage by Carl Weathers) fight Rocky Balboa. A promotion at work seems to push him to make a definitive decision and Adonis quits and leaves Los Angeles and the comforts of Creed manor to move to Philadelphia and look for Rocky (Sylvester Stallone), who is where we left him in Rocky Balboa, work-
AT THE MULTIPLEX
Coming soon Dec. 4: Krampus (PG-13) Adam Scott and Toni Collette star in this horror film about Santa’s evil half; Chi-Raq (R) Spike Lee’s latest film reworks the Lysistrata story.
Creed
ing at his restaurant, Adrian’s. Though Adonis, whose nickname is Donnie, is just regular joe Donnie Johnson to the guys at Mickey’s gym where he goes to train, he lets Rocky know who his dad was and generally Million Dollar Babys Rocky — showing up at the restaurant and calling him “Unc” — until he agrees to train him. Eventually, Donnie gets a fight with an acquaintance of Rocky’s, who soon figures out Donnie’s real identity. With a widely covered win under his belt and a big-time name, Donnie gets a chance to fight Ricky Conlan (Tony Bellew), a world-champion boxer from Liverpool who is looking for one last big fight to help pay the bills before he goes to jail for a few years on a weapons charge. Even though Ricky is taller, bigger and, a-hem, the World Champion, Donnie can’t resist this chance to make a name for himself and not just be known as “Baby Creed.”
looking for redemption from years of jerkishness and for three Michelin stars in this cliched and boring and not-atall yummy-looking movie. D
* Crimson Peak (R) Mia Wasikowska, Tom Reviewlets Hiddleston. * Indicates movies worth Guillermo del Toro wrote seeing. and directed this top-notch gothic horror movie that is *Bridge of Spies (PG-13) Halloween fun for lovers of old-fashioned, Victorian-style Tom Hanks, Mark Rylance. Steven Spielberg directs this creepiness. A woman who traditional but solid Cold War sees ghosts finds herself in a legal and spy thriller. Hanks crumbling ghost-filled Engperformance is good; Rylance’s lish manor with a husband performance is great. Awho has a dark secret. A Burnt (R) Bradley Cooper, Daniel Bruhl. Cooper plays an angry chef
Also, Julianne Moore, Donald Sutherland, Elizabeth Banks, Natalie Dormer and Stanley Tucci, plus Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth doing their duty in the least essential, love triangle part of the story. No matter your actual interest in Panem and the world of this dystopian YA novel, the cast is too great to ignore. B
That particular moniker irks Donnie so much that he actually ends up trading punches with the guy who called him that, even though this means he was slugging guys backstage at a show for Bianca (Tess Thompson). His downstairs neighbor, Bianca is a musician whom Donnie quickly falls for — his “yo, Adrian.” In addition to this very sweet romantic subplot, there’s a bit of business with the aging Rocky, who is really more of a supporting character in this “Rocky” movie, facing some health difficulties. Creed feels not so much like a sequel to or a reboot of the franchise as it does a revival. Rocky is the same Rocky and Creed was the same Creed, but with a son whose backstory is believably hard-luck enough to tap into some of that Rocky underdogness. Jordan — the star of the excellent Fruitvale Station from 2013 and this year’s less-than-excellent Fantastic *The Martian (PG-13) Matt Damon, Jeff Daniels. An astronaut is stranded on Mars and has to science the heck out of the situation in order to survive the years until NASA can organize a rescue. Not just a fun movie that nicely blends humor and tension, The Martian is also an ode to science and how cool it can be. Perfect proSTEM propaganda for your middle-schooler. A
Four — is exactly the right actor to play this next-generation character. He turns in an engaging performance, getting all the nuanced emotional stuff right, but has the physicality to make the boxing part realistic enough. His scenes with Thompson are almost shocking in how natural the chemistry between these two actors is — perhaps not always the dialogue but the tone, the way two people who are attracted to each other and start to fall in love relate to each other, feels spot on. Because Jordan makes Donnie a realistic guy, Thompson seems like a layered rounded girl and not just some add-on, one-dimensional girlfriend character. Because their relationship works, we get a little bit more of Donnie as a fully formed person, not just as a person looking to please an absent father. Because we care about this fully formed Donnie and his life, the Rocky part of the story feels organic, and not like some kind of cheat for franchise brand extension. Thus, the backstory, a backstory which is older than a good number of the people who will likely go to see Creed, doesn’t just feel gimmicky. OK, it’s a little gimmicky. But it’s also fun — there are nice moments of nostalgia, from the footage of Creed to the way the movie uses the Rocky theme song. But what makes the movie a successful rebirth of the Rocky saga is that the nostalgia isn’t the sum total of the reason to see this movie, it’s just a fun bit of icing on a very well-baked cake. B+ Rated PG-13 for violence, language and some sensuality. Directed by Ryan Coogler with a screenplay by Ryan Coogler & Aaron Covington, Creed is two hours and 13 minutes long and distributed by Warner Bros.
*The Peanuts Movie (G) Noah Schnapp, Hadley Belle Miller. The characters you know and love get a surprisingly sweet update (visually; thematically they are the same) in this animated movie that has Charlie Brown attempting to win over the Little Red Haired Girl. B+
*Sicario (R) Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Love the Coopers (PG-13) Toro. Diane Keaton, John Blunt gives a fantastic perGoodman. Our Brand Is Crisis (R) formance as an FBI agent A few funny bits and the Sandra Bullock, Billy Bob thrown into the ultra-viooccasional touching perforThornton. lent drug war between U.S. mance do not make up for a Based on a documentary of the law enforcement and Mexlot of soggy family-at-Christ- same name, this story about ican cartels. She is tough *The Hunger Games: Mock- mas cliches. D+ dueling American political and capable while still being ingjay — Part 2 (PG-13) strategists in the Bolivian elec- human and layered. If it isn’t Jennifer Lawrence, Philip tion is smug, condescending Oscar-nomination-worthy, I Seymour Hoffman. and no darn fun. Cdon’t know what is. A-
HIPPO | DECEMBER 3 - 9, 2015 | PAGE 54
Spectre (PG-13) Daniel Craig, Christoph Waltz. Neither James Bond nor the actor playing him seem to being having fun in the 24th official outing of the character. The movie’s would-be saving grace — the Scooby Gang of M, Moneypenny, Bill Tanner and Q — comes too little, too late. C Steve Jobs (R) Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet. A top-notch cast and standout behind-the-camera names (Danny Boyle directing, Aaron Sorkin writing) still don’t do much to enliven this so-so biopic of Apple’s co-founder. C-