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Creed 2 - yet another Rocky film

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zico
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Creed 2 - yet another Rocky film

#192054

Postby zico » January 8th, 2019, 10:58 pm

3/10. A boxing film from the Rocky franchise but not as good and chock-full of American schmaltz and sentimentality.

The film draws on previous Rocky films for its backstory, with Rocky (Sylvester Stallone of course) being the trainer for the main character who is Apollo Creed's son, disappointingly not called Apollo II, but Adonis, which is a rather appropriate name as he's far too handsome (and small) to be plausible as a heavyweight boxing champion. So, the film opens with Adonis becoming heavyweight champion. Is that it? Will this be the shortest film ever? Sadly not. A fearsome challenger (who actually looks like a heavyweight boxer) emerges from Ukraine/Russia (the film doesn't seem overly sure or bothered about where he's from), and in one of those amazing movie coincidences, their fathers fought each other and Adonis's father died at the end of the fight. Even more coincidentally, Rocky was in Apollo Creed's corner, and feels guilty for not throwing in the towel and saving him.

All this happens in about the first 5 minutes, and you already think you know exactly how this will all unfold. But before it does, there's a glacially slow pace with turgid "relationship" scenes featuring bad dialogue and even worse acting between Adonis and his girlfriend. These two are incredibly wooden and appear to have been picked to make Sylvester Stallone look like Leonardo Di Caprio in comparison. Sylvester is the best thing in the film. His ex-wife (Brigitte Neilson) has a cameo role, with a cold and calculating persona which must have been a real acting stretch for her.

Anyway, for the remaining several hours of screentime, Rocky says "how ya doin'" a lot, Adonis embarks on a Journey with Difficult Moments where a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do, has to search for the hero inside himself, be the best man that he can be and other assorted cliches, while others say things like "only he can find his true path forward" and Rocky dispenses his philosophic gems Yoda-style, such as "hey, you gotta do what's right for you" and "hey, family, that's everything man, know what I'm saying?". Will Adonis find True Redemption in the boxing ring or will he decide to invest in acting lessons? The fight scenes are the usual unrealistic Rocky-style fights, where each boxer takes it in turn to allow about 4 or 5 big punches to land unopposed as though avoiding punches was somehow unsporting, and body punches appear to be a lot more effective than head punches.

I guess the critics must think it's a deep and meaningful study of masculinity and development as a person, but I just thought it was plodding, predictable and sentimental. For me, the lead actor was utterly unconvincing as a boxer. If you've never seen a Rocky film before, I'd suggest you go and watch the original Rocky rather than this film.

JamesMuenchen
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Re: Creed 2 - yet another Rocky film

#192097

Postby JamesMuenchen » January 9th, 2019, 8:17 am

You didn't mention the montage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFrMLRQIT_k


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