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Wait! Before you break out your light sabers and start going crazy. I thought The Force Awakens was great, you can read that review here.
Like the Star Wars saga, Creed is the seventh installment in the series of Rocky themed movies that launched in 1976. Just like the Star Wars movies after number three, the Rocky movies have been almost un-watchable, but Sylvester Stallone, like George Lucas just kept making them.
Creed is the story of Rocky’s first opponent and life long friend Apollo Creed, his son, Adonis Johnson, played by Michael B. Jordan and his attempt to fill his father’s shoes. Nope the last name isn’t a type-o, you see Adonis Johnson is Apollo Creed’s illegitimate son from an affair that Apollo had right before he was killed in the ring.
Adonis like one of our friends in Star Wars who becomes a very big deal, was raised all alone as a child, not knowing his father or his true powers or even his real last name (I am referring to Luke Skywalker), then all of that changes.
I’m not going to ruin it. Creed offers up something that the Rocky series hasn’t seen since 1979: acting. Real honest acting. It’s almost mind blowing at first when you realize you are watching a “Rocky movie” and there is good acting, great acting, talk about a left cross of reality to the cerebral cortex!
It’s an old unspoken Hollywood understanding that when you let stars act, write and direct, the movie has a good chance of being awful, there is nobody to tell the star “no,” and a lot of weight on one person’s shoulders, bad decisions get made(see The Clumps for proof).
If you look at the Creed IMDB page, you will quickly see that Sylvester Stallone didn’t direct the movie and was only one of the writers. Ryan Coogler a relative Hollywood newbie wrote and directed Creed, giving Stallone, Jordan, Tess Thompson and Phylicia Rashad room to think, act and react, making Creed great.
Okay my angry Jedi loving friends, why is Creed better than The Force Awakens? The acting is better. The script is better. The story is, well that one may be tied. The action, better. The Force Awakens wins in special effects, I mean come on. Overall Creed is a much better crafted movie.
Like the Rocky 1, you know the last good one. Creed Vs The Force Awakens, is the story of Rocky. Comparatively Creed is a tiny movie that nobody really cared too much about, trying to make a name for itself among the giants and has to punch its way to the top.
Will Creed make a billion world wide in a week, nope, not even close (46 million in the first week), but it will make you cheer, laugh, cry (yes, there are moments that will make you cry) and revive your faith in the story of Rocky.
Once you are done seeing The Force Awakens, make a plan to see Creed. I’ll leave my I told you so’s for later.
NOTE: Creed is not for little kids, there is violence, sex and language. I would say 10 and over and that’s a 10 year old with older siblings who has heard it all already.
