CREED (2015) | OnStreaming

creed_blog_thumbnail — Images: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and New Line Cinema

“One step at a time. One punch at a time. One round at a time.”

Directed by: Ryan Coogler
2h 13min PG-13

2015, like every year, saw the release of many movie sequels. Three of them continued a series of films that began in the seventies, Mad Max: Fury Road, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and Creed.

These three movies approach their stories in very different ways.

Fury Road simply puts Mad Max into a new scenario where he reluctantly joins a group of underdogs in a struggle against a powerful warlord. There are surprises, car chases, and explosions. That’s great because that’s what Max does.

The seventh Star Wars film, The Force Awakens, resets nearly all the returning characters back to where they were when we first met them in 1977. Han Solo is back to being a smuggler wanted by gangsters, Leia is back to leading a small resistance against a rebranded evil empire, and our new lead, Rey, replaces Luke Skywalker as the young orphan on a desert planet with special powers and an inherited lightsaber. In the thirty years since we last saw our heroes they haven’t moved forward, they’ve regressed to the way we want to remember them.

Creed, also the seventh film in a franchise, made the bold choice to let its characters live. Rocky Balboa isn’t in the same place he was in 1976. He’s not living the extravagant life he had in the eighties either. He’s running his restaurant, living a quiet, lonely life. The only time he sees friends is when he visits their graves. It’s getting a little depressing in here, but don’t worry, Rocky finds new purpose when the son of his greatest past rival shows up at his door. Adonis Creed wants to be a boxer, and he needs Rocky’s help to do it.

There are many ways to approach a sequel to popular franchise films. My preference? Let the characters live outside of their screen-time and outside of our expectations. Creed finds the balance required to blend new characters with established ones and keep the story moving forward.

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