Movie Review: Creed
By Thalia Badio, Contributor
[Metro-Goldwyn Mayer; 2015]
Rating: 2.5/5
While Creed admittedly has become a tremendous financial success this Thanksgiving, the movie definitely failed to live up to some of the hype surrounding it. Perhaps because I am not a die-hard Rocky fan, I was able to look at this film through a different lens. What I experienced was a two-and-a-half hour mediocre boxing movie featuring a few admittedly well played out dramatic moments between Sylvester Stallone and Michael B. Jordan. As someone who absolutely loves a good boxing movie, I have to say, I was unimpressed.
There were three main problems with this movie: bad editing, an uninspired soundtrack and a script filled with what felt like major plot holes.
The story seemed standard enough: an up-and-coming underdog, training his hardest to make his name, meets a mentor who changes everything. Unfortunately, Creed’s background story was left unexplained and totally unnecessary to the plot. I couldn’t for the life of me understand what had happened to the protagonist as a kid that had left him with such a confusing family story. It wasn’t until halfway through the film that his relationship with his estranged step-mother was finally explained.
The movie was much too long as well. While the fight scenes were admittedly just as magnificent as they were action packed and bloody (just what a good boxing movie needs), certain scenes dragged on for an obscene length of time or were unnecessary and misleading.
The last and most disappointing drawback to this movie was the soundtrack. A boxing or sports movie should always have an amazing and vitalizing soundtrack. After watching Southpaw earlier this year, I found a sudden desire to go to the gym, to punch something, to prove my name in the streets--maybe get a tattoo. It’s the music director's job to bring the heat in the boxing ring, something that was ultimately unaccomplished.
Basically, Creed was a decent movie, but not at all up to par with the hype. I applaud Ryan Coogler’s use of a black lead (there are certainly not enough in Hollywood) and Sylvester Stallone's performance. However, I do believe that a lot more could have been done to make this movie a bit more streamlined and inspiring.
