Walked out

Rating: 4/10 (25 December 2015)

I can't believe Creed has so much praise, did I watch the same film? Firstly, I thought Ryan Coogler did an excellent job with Fruitvale Station and that's the reason I wanted to see Creed, not because I'm a fan of Rocky, which I'm not. I did expect this to be enjoyable though and I expected it to be easy to follow without having seen the originals but the film didn't suck me in at all and instead I was questioning everything because I wasn't engaged. Why does Rocky, a famous ex-boxer, live in a terrible house? It's never explained why a former champion boxer has decided to live a meagre lifestyle and what happened to all his wealth (if this was shown in Rocky III then it would perhaps have been nice to allude to it here). I also didn't understand why Adonis, whose mother is incredibly wealthy, chooses to drive a van around and quits a good job to go and fight. Yes, he loves fighting, but why does he love fighting? We don't get a real feel for any of the characters before suddenly Adonis is moving in with Rocky who inexplicably is perfectly happy to have him and his girlfriend sleeping on his couch when they both have their own apartments. Normally I would be fine connecting the dots and just going with it but it was so boring I couldn't help but notice the sheer amount of stupidity in the script that we're supposed to believe for no reason. The fight sequences are quite well done, the film is well photographed and the actors do a fine job but the script is awful in my opinion; flat characters, trite dialogue and inexplicable plot developments would be fine in an otherwise entertaining comedy or horror film but not in a drama like this. I walked out just under two thirds of the way through.