Formuliac Feel Good Urban Fairytale But Nothing More Than That

Rating: 6/10 (23 December 2015)

Look stop me if you heard this before but Once upon a time a poor downtrodden lad from the wrong side of the tracks finds a purpose in life and rescues himself from a dead end life and finds wealth and happiness from the fruits of his efforts Sounds like every story ever written doesn't it and the only stand out is that it's yet another movie in the ROCKY franchise . To be fair the Italian stallion isn't really the focus of the story and the story revolves around the son of the late Apollo Creed , a son has it happens he didn't know he had and a son no one else in the universe knew he had apart from the producers of this movie . Did someone say contrived ? How about another word beginning with C - cynical ? Yes that's the word we're looking for . Cynical
But this isn't a film for cynics and it helps if you don't view this film through cynical eyes because like the original ROCKY from 40 years ago . It certainly tries to be feel good and might just succeed on that account if you're in the mood . Director Ryan Coogler does cast well with up and comer Michael B Jordan in the title role with real life boxers such as Ward and Bellew as pugilists and it's probably the only film you'll see where the climax takes place at Goodison Park in Liverpool . No doubt the people who enjoyed the previous films in the ROCKY series will enjoy this one but you've seen it all before many times even down to having the bad guys speak with British accents