Serious Drama!

Rating: 9/10 (21 December 2019)

Love the Rocky series warts and all. It's incredible to see the tone and style of these movies shift with the times.
Creed II and Rocky IV couldn't be any more different. Kudos to Stallone and the production team for recognising how to freshen up the franchise and craft a believable story with real character development.
Really the series should've finished with Rocky Balboa it was an appropriate send off but injecting life into Rocky as a mentor to Adonis Creed has taken the movies into a different style and tonal shift.
Colliding this fresh take with the highly bombastic and flashiest Rocky sequel with the return of Ivan Drago isn't easy but I'm flabbergasted at the quality of this piece of cinema.
All the elements are there montages of training and every punch exaggerated but it feels grounded and earthy much like the first two Rocky films were.
Great script and acting performances from all the leads. Dolph Lundgren in particular is a real surprise he has that coldness still but it's laced with an undercurrent of a man who's broken really and wants his life back.
Every expression is very nuanced and the relationship between him and Victor really powers the film for Adonis to face up to the uncertainty in his life.
Also these films have always had great musical scores. An important part of these movies as it's based around sport and music takes on a bigger role.
Loved it my favourite film of all the movies now as it used to be Rocky 3 but this although borrowed heavily from that and 4 enhanced the film to a higher level than it's predecessors.
One thing I didn't expect in conclusion was to to actually cry in the final scenes a statement of how invested I was in the characters by the end.