Not Bad At All (Spoilers)

Rating: 6/10 (24 October 2016)

According to The Simpsons the idea of a seventh Rocky movie was so ridiculous that they jokingly referred to it as "Adrian's Revenge." Sylvester Stallone proved that Simpsons prediction false by once again making an enjoyable Rocky movie despite the Rocky character being retired from the sport of boxing for the third consecutive movie.
The movie follows the same basic plot line of the first Rocky movie. A young boxer looking for respect and meaning in his life recruits a wise old trainer to aid him in his quest to beat the undisputed heavyweight champion in an unlikely underdog matchup. It is sort of a soft reboot of the first Rocky movie from the basic premise to the unlikely fight with the champ, to the ending of the last fight of the movie. That's not a bad thing though. The movie has its own original things going for it that set it apart, and Michael B. Jordan is a suitable heir to the Rocky throne. However the movie felt a little empty for a Rocky movie.
Adonis Creed's connection to his father Apollo was paper thin which made it harder for me to care about said connection. In the beginning when Adonis was a child of about 11 years old or so he doesn't even know his father was Apollo Creed. I feel like this could have been done much better by simply having Adonis be about 6 or 7 when Apollo died. That way he would have had more of a reason to care about him, and more reason to have a chip on his shoulder. Carl Weathers is still alive so why not just film a few flashback scenes from when Adonis was young? Without that connection the whole movie feels a little weak, and Adonis' motivations feel almost superficial. This is what's really holding me back from calling it a great Rocky movie. The fight at the end needs more emotional investment in it than that, but it just falls a little short for me.
The antagonist in this movie is 'Pretty' Ricky Conlan played by real life WBC cruiserweight champion Tony Bellew. Getting a world class boxer to be in your boxing movie is almost always the best bet, but I would have passed on Tony Bellew. He just doesn't look like an intimidating champion to me despite the fact that he is one in real life. This is going to sound like a nitpick, but Tony's body is too undefined and really takes a little bit of the air out of his intimidation. Carl Weathers wasn't a champion boxer, but he definitely looked like one, and he's a good actor to boot. Ricky Conlan is somehow even less memorable than the antagonist in Rocky Balboa. On top of that there's just no proper buildup for the fight. In the first Rocky you at least see Apollo Creed watching boxing training on TV and being impressed. You see more of what's going on with Apollo before the fight happens in that movie, and it makes the fight itself have more tension. In Creed all you get is the pre fight press conference shouting match which was just predictable.
Other than that I found the pacing to be a little fast, and didn't spend enough time on character development in general.
All in all this is a good movie that I recommend to any fan of the Rocky series. It's personally my least favorite of the seven films because it's not as intentionally good as Rocky 1 and Rocky Balboa, but not unintentionally hilarious like Rocky 2-5.