The punch that was coming after all

Rating: 5/10 (13 February 2016)

First of all some honest talk. Hollywood loves to make sequels. Rocky series were great and inspirational especially rocky 3 and 4. The grit, determination,the angst and the perspiration were all depicted too well.Then came rocky 5 and 6 which were a pale shadow of its predecessors. Though this movie does not bear the original movie title, it is but a natural extension of the saga. Creed ( Adonis Creed ) played by Micheal B. Jordan, the son of former heavy weight champion Apollo Creed is determined to make his mark as pugilist on his own and just not as a creed.He requests Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) to be his mentor and trainer .He goes on to fight the reigning world champion mean and vicious "Pretty" Ricky Conlan ( Tony Bellew) to prove his existence was and is no mistake.He does this and in style winning accolades and the hearts of the people and quite predictably not the match. Beyond the determination of the champ, the sweat and the intense training , the movie is downright predictable. Thrown in the drama is the parallel fight of Balboa against cancer,a rather lackluster chemistry between him and the other interest in creed's life Bianca(Teesa Thompson). Together the smörgåsbord works okay . Ageing Stallone (Balboa) plays his part very well and is as good as it gets. He plays his part as creed's trainer really well.He is subdued,caring as for his age, gentle and tough at the same time. The final fight is well shown ensuring a steady secretion of adrenaline. The movie does have its moment when creed badly bruised and with one swollen eye and near blurred vision still manages to stay on in the ring with some clever finger tapping hint on the nape of his neck from balboa. All in all a very predictable sport saga that just manages to hold on.You seen them once, you know them all.