The Start of a New Franchise?

Rating: 7/10 (26 November 2015)

I saw "Creed", starring Michael B. Jordan-Fantastic Four_2015, Fruitvale Station; Sylvester Stallone-The Expendables movies, the Rocky movies; Tessa Thompson-For Colored Girls, When a Stranger Calls_2006; Phylicia Rashad-For Colored Girls, The Cosby Show_tv and Tony Bellew-This is his first movie, he is a real boxer from Liverpool, England.
This is a 'Rocky' movie but Rocky doesn't do any boxing in it. Maybe it's the start of a new franchise or something, since Sylvester is getting a little older. Michael plays the illegitimate son of Apollo Creed. It seems that Apollo had an affair outside of his marriage-Wow, who ever heard of a sports figure doing such a thing? Anyway, Phylicia plays Apollo's widow-in case you may have forgotten, Apollo was killed by a big Soviet fighter, aka, Dolph Lundgren-and she adopts Michael from an orphanage, where he is always getting into fights. I guess fighting is just in his blood. Since Michael was born after Apollo died, he never knew his father. He decides to try to make a living as a boxer and decides to look up Sylvester, since he is the closest person he can think of that knew Apollo, and see if he can train him. Sylvester is running a restaurant called Adrian's-I bet he loves answering the phone with, 'Adriannnn's!'-and is reluctant to train Michael at first but soon gives in. He even tells Michael about the 3rd fight between Rocky and Apollo at the end of Rocky 3, and who won it. Tessa plays a neighbor of Michael's that is trying to become a singer. Oh yeah, she is his love interest, too. Tony plays an English boxer-I know, a big stretch for him to do-who also happens to be the big opponent for Michael. The fights are good, just as exciting as in the earlier Rocky movies. Michael even gets to wear the red, white and blue American trunks in his big fight. It's rated "PG" for violence, language and sexual content-no nudity-and has a running time of 2 hours & 12 minutes. If you are a fan of the Rocky movies, you will probably enjoy this one, too. I really liked it and would buy it on Blu-Ray.