Best Rocky movie in years but still not as good as the original one

Rating: 8/10 (29 November 2015)

Outside of the original 1976 Rocky film, the Rocky franchise consists of some decent films but none can hold a candle to the original film which still holds up today nearly 40 years since it's release, however Creed is a very good film and earns the spot of the second best movie in the entire franchise. The film does so many things right, the gym politics between fighters is an interesting angle, the boxing choreography is the best the series has ever seen but still not at Raging Bull's (one of my favorite films notwithstanding sports or boxing movies genre) level of realism and accuracy of how boxing matches actually happen. The acting is phenomenal, Michael B Jordan will be a heavyweight (boxing puns!) in Hollywood in a few years, Sylvester Stallone however surprised a lot of people with a very touching and emotional portrayal of a man who has lost his family and is just waiting for death. Stallone's performance didn't surprise me because I have always known in certain situations this guy can deliver, watch the original Rocky movie, the guy was nominated for an Oscar, he absolutely deserved that nomination, there is more to him than Expendables franchise.
I would recommend everyone to check this out, as much as I liked this film I have to admit that it will not reach the iconic status of the original Rocky film. Primarily because the film had a few missteps in the editing department, the first half could have been shorter by 15 minutes or so, it was trying to be a cool funny film for everybody but I was glad that it ditched all that for intense heavy emotional drama in the second half. Another minor nitpick I have is I never felt as invested in the relationship of Adonis and Bianca compared to Rocky and Adrian, these films aren't about romance though so it's not a big deal. Further, I found Adonis Creed to be a lot like Apollo Creed smart, intelligent and charismatic, which is great and all but I prefer Rocky as the protagonist because he was a blue collared simple man who was not good with words but always got up after being knocked down.