December 23rd in Chicago. The 7th film of the Rocky franchise that has spanned nearly 40 years. In this installment Rocky takes a back seat to Adonis Johnson (Michael B. Jordan), the illegitimate son of former champion Apollo Creed. The film opens in a juvenile detention center where a young Adonis is in a fist fight with a much larger kid. Enter Mary Anne Creed (Phylicia Rashad) who informs Adonis she knew his mother and was married to his father, Apollo Creed.
Zoom to present day, Adonis quits his lucrative job a securities firm to pursue a boxing career (he's been fighting in Tijuana) much to Mary Anne's dismay. After getting turned down at LA's Aldephi Gym, he packs everything up and heads to Philadelphia to train with the only other "family" he has, Rocky Balboa. Rocky is reluctant to train Adonis but changes his mind after a quick guilt trip down memory lane. Rocky sets Adonis up at a local gym and after a few minutes of onscreen training, Adonis gets his 1st fight as "Hollywood" Donnie Johnson against the son of the gym owner where he briefly trained. After the fight it gets leaked that Donnie is Apollo's illegitimate son (Donnie wanted to forge his own legacy and wasn't keen on using the name).
The win leads to a fight with light heavyweight champ Ricky Conlan (Tony Bellow), who's facing a 7 year bid on a weapons charge and botched a previous fight by breaking the jaw of his opponent at the weigh in. While training for the fight, Rocky is diagnosed with cancer (surprisingly it's not a brain injury) but refuses treatment because Adrian went for treatment and she died. Donnie finds about it and confronts Rocky but the two have a falling out. Donnie then gets into a fight with the headlining act for his girlfriend's band (for the sole reason of showing that he's a hot head) but eventually makes up with Rocky while in his holding cell.
The conditions of the Conlan fight are that it will take place in Liverpool and Donnie has to change his name to Creed. The fight itself plays out like Balboa V. Creed I, overmatched underdog stays in the fight, keeps it close, loses the fight (barely) but wins the crowd at the end. The kid has arrived. Back in Philadelphia, Rocky is undergoing chemo and he and Donnie go up the steps of the Art Museum.
This film started production in January of this year and was released on November 25, 2015. For such a short timeline between production and release, this was a pretty good film but it's not 93% rating on Rotten Tomatoes good. The film is essentially a 2 hour long Nike commercial. That's another thing, the picture has a 133 minute run time which is about 20 minutes too long (they definitely didn't need the fight scene at the club but it set up the Donnie and Rocky reconciliation which could've been done another way). Too many unneeded scenes. There are some funny moments and there's a connection between Donnie and Rocky. I thought it was a bit cliched to open up in a juvenile hall. I just didn't like that stereotype. Ryan Coogler wrote and directed this film and did a very nice job of keeping the film moving and telling a coherent story. My only issue with the story is that I find it hard to believe that Adonis would give up his life as a securities broker to become a boxer. It usually doesn't happen that way. This was Coogler's first major motion picture after he wrote and directed 2013's Fruitvale Station. Coogler looks to be a director that people should keep their eye on in the future.
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