Creed

Imag­ine your life being played out in not just one movie, but a series of films released over decades, cap­tur­ing each set­back, love, loss and tri­umph. French direc­tor François Truf­faut did just that for his char­ac­ter, Antoine Doinel, played by Jean-Pierre Leaud, in a cycle of films between 1959 and 1979.

Amer­i­can cin­e­ma has an equiv­a­lent. His name is Rocky Bal­boa. But rather than wit­ness boy blos­som­ing into man, as in Truffaut’s films, we’ve seen a doe-eyed, mar­ble-mouthed lunkhead slug his way into the pop­u­lar con­scious­ness via a string of gru­elling pro­fes­sion­al and per­son­al strug­gles. It’s fair to say that Rocky (Sylvester Stal­lone) – last seen pac­ing the ring with sex­a­ge­nar­i­an swag­ger in 2006’s Rocky Bal­boa – has endured con­sid­er­ably more than 400 blows on his jour­ney. Time, then, for the old man to enjoy some respite?

The answer lies in Creed, an absorb­ing and elec­tri­fy­ing series reboot con­ceived, direct­ed and co-writ­ten by Ryan Coogler, whose 2013 debut, Fruit­vale Sta­tion – a docu­d­ra­ma about the final day in the life of a young black father slain by police – marked him out as a sen­si­tive film­mak­er with a warm, nat­u­ral­is­tic style. Rather than mar­gin­alise Rocky, Coogler sen­si­bly ush­ers him into a dig­ni­fied sup­port­ing role as men­tor to a new star, Ado­nis John­son (Fruitvale’s Michael B Jor­dan), the ille­git­i­mate son of his late rival Apol­lo Creed.

Ado­nis is a well-paid white-col­lar drone and part-time box­er who jacks in his ster­ile LA exis­tence for the mean streets of Philadel­phia. He aims to per­suade Rocky, now a restau­rant man­ag­er, to train him so that he may forge his own leg­end and escape the long shad­ow of the father he nev­er met. (Yes, the premise is a lit­tle far-fetched, but the brood­ing, charis­mat­ic Jor­dan sells it, and the actor’s stun­ning­ly chis­elled physique says more than dia­logue ever could about his character’s com­mit­ment to the cause.) As the plot kicks in, Coogler doesn’t try to rein­vent the wheel: as in many sports films, the pro­tag­o­nist under­goes crises of faith on his jour­ney toward spir­i­tu­al nour­ish­ment. He also falls for the beau­ti­ful girl-next-door, a tough-yet-sen­si­tive singer-song­writer played with wit and grace by Tes­sa Thompson.

Lest Creed sound over­ly ten­der and rumi­na­tive for a box­ing flick, it also packs a seri­ous punch, replete with crunch­ing fight sequences cap­tured by DoP Maryse Alber­ti in a prob­ing, prowl­ing style. The stag­ger­ing high point is a duel between Ado­nis and a local Philly fight­er that unfolds in one unblink­ing, vis­cer­al take. And while there’s no flam­boy­ant vil­lain in the vein of Club­ber Lang (Rocky III) or Ivan Dra­go (Rocky IV), real-life pugilist Tony Bellew is under­stat­ed­ly men­ac­ing as Ado­nis’ Scouse rival ​“Pret­ty” Ricky Con­lan. He’s tough, but nev­er dis­tracts us from the fact that Ado­nis’ great­est fight is against himself.

At 133 min­utes, Creed is a tad flab­bier than nec­es­sary: a sub­plot con­cern­ing Rocky’s fight with ill­ness, while touch­ing in its own right, slack­ens the pace. How­ev­er, Coogler pulls it around for a barn­storm­ing final act and a mov­ing, under­stat­ed dénoue­ment. Jor­dan – and this film – are both good enough for us to hope that Ado­nis will be train­ing up a new heir to the throne 40 years from now.

Creed is out on DVD 16 May, 2016.