CHUCK (2017)

The boxing movie is coming dangerously close to eclipsing the baseball movie as the most prominent sport depicted in cinema. There have been the major or minor classics (most of them starring Sylvester Stallone), the very okay (starring…Sylvester Stallone) to the downright pitiful (um….yep). But between the first and most recent Rocky/Creed films, there have been the well-made and sappy Cinderella Man, the well-made but overwrought Million Dollar Baby, and…whatever Grudge Match was. (Besides terrible). They have been founded on true stories, semi-true stories, or complete works of fiction. What sets Chuck off from the pack is that it’s a boxing film that doesn’t focus much on boxing, instead spending its time focusing on lead pugilist Chuck Wepner, whose reputation as a “bleeder” in the boxing world, as well as his somewhat stunted presentation (Whoo! New Jersey!) would inspire Stallone not just to write Rocky, but to fashion his Rocky Balboa character after him. And that’s where Chuck’s conflict comes into play. While one might argue that every boxing film is about your hero fighting him or herself, this more obviously plays out when he or she fights an insurmountable foe by film’s end, declaring victory either in or out of the ring. Instead, Chuck looks at Chuck, the man, not Chuck, the boxer. It looks at a man suddenly struggling with his own identity after the fictionalized version of him has been washed across silver screens and earned a multitude of Academy Awards. Chuck doesn’t culminate in that final fight against the insurmountable foe because the insurmountable foe he fights the entire film is himself – his demons, his reckless lifestyle, his selfishness, and his sense of worth.

Chuck features an eclectic ensemble of actors, all of whom do absolutely phenomenal work, from the lead performance by Liev Schreiber all the way down to comedian Jim Gaffigan, who appears only in a handful of scenes. Character actor Ron Perlman, face shaved and beneath a bald cap, delivers a small performance that allows him to go beyond just being Ron Perlman. Elizabeth Moss, too, excels as Wepner’s wife, Phyllis, nailing both the Jersey accent as well as the attitude. And then there’s Naomi Watts, nearly unrecognizable beneath the wig and the fake boobs, stealing every scene in which she appears. (And yes, Stallone – or rather, Chuck’s version of Stallone – also appears, portrayed by Morgan Spector, who nails the actor’s voice and intonation, but not quite the look...mullet notwithstanding.)

Chuck’s tone, too, helps set it off, as right off the bat it’s clearly more interested in being an American Hustle-style boxing film rather than just another overly dramatic story about the successful underdog. Marrying together genuine footage from Wepner’s career, along with recreations seamlessly weaved within, Chuck tells a story that you think might be familiar because you know the Rocky series by heart, but by film’s end, you’ll realize you don’t know anything about the real fighter who went the distance.

Despite the impressive ensemble, Chuck is one of those films that’s easy to write off before giving it a chance – “inspired by a true story” has become the new go-to for marketing films that have even a casual connection to reality – but Chuck impresses with its excellent performances and its reliance on a boxer’s fight against himself rather than a larger, meaner foe. It’s not taking things as seriously as the best Rocky films did, but it doesn’t pull any punches, either. 

CREED II (2018)

2015’s Creed was a risky move, especially after Rocky creator and caretaker Sylvester Stallone had successfully resurrected his character ten years prior for Rocky Balboa to say goodbye and allow the series to retire with some dignity. As great of an ending as Rocky Balboa proved to be, Creed was an even greater reintroduction of the character to a new generation, finding an organic way to reboot the franchise without stripping it of its identity. And now, Creed’s own sequel has arrived, which exists on a very shaky premise: the son of fighter Apollo Creed versus the son of the fighter who killed him – events which unfold in 1985’s Rocky IV, the corniest sequel in the franchise.

Creed II ranks as the Rocky II of this new franchise – not nearly as good as the original, but good enough to stand on its own two feet and justify its existence. As a whole, the Rocky series maintains not because every film is blemish-free, but because of the series’ spirit, and what it represents. Creed II ably carries forth with that spirit, as Adonis Creed’s (Michael B. Jordan) family grows, causing the fighter to redefine exactly what it is he’s fighting for. Structurally, the events of Creed II’s story feel a little more predictable: you can forecast the various conflicts that will inevitably arise before they actually do. By now, the franchise has a very familiar pattern: dream, train, fight, lose, wallow, thrive, train, and win (or lose). Creed was unique enough to feel like a fresh take on a standard sports movie. Creed II, meanwhile, is certainly well made, but not enough that it overcomes that familiarity.

What’s lacking the most in this entry is the emotional connection the audience shares with its characters. That’s not to say that Creed II lacks heart, because that’s not at all the case — even the worst Rocky sequels had heart — but there’s nothing here that compares to, say, Rocky railing against a boxing commission denying his desire for one last fight, or a training montage that juxtaposes Adonis Creed running down Philly streets with Rocky in a hospital room receiving chemotherapy. (A deleted scene included on the Blu-ray shows Rocky giving a eulogy at the funeral of fellow fighter Spider Rico, whose character dates back to 1976’s Rocky, which would’ve beefed up Creed II’s emotional core considerably.)

Every Rocky entry has done what so few mainstream movies have been able to do: transcend being movies and feel like events. As such, a Rocky movie, and now, a Creed movie, has to feel big. It has to recognize that its audience hasn’t just come for the story, but for the presentation of that story, and they know that said experience demands the inclusion of certain series iconography. The city of Philadelphia, or the front porch of Rocky’s modest row home, or even his crooked fedora—all these little things defined what a Rocky movie was. Director Steven Caple Jr. (a colleague of Creed director Ryan Coogler, who recommended him for the helm after moving on to Black Panther) recognizes this as well, just as we recognize that any Rocky movie has to feel cinematic. As Ivan Drago (a returning Dolph Lundgren) and his fighter son Viktor (Florian Munteanu) stand on the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum and look on in amusement as passersby take photos with the Rocky statue, or do the famous run up the stairs, Caple is banking on the audience feeling territorial toward Philadelphia, the home of Rocky, the ultimate underdog. Though the level of villainy is far down compared to Rocky IV, we know that the Dragos are essentially the villains, and when the camera pans around to capture them from the back as they look out over the city they hope to dominate, those chills you’re feeling are very real. That’s why we’re here.

As expected by now, Creed II offers an array of excellent performances, from Jordan’s Adonis to Stallone’s weathered Rocky, even to an understated but evocative take on Ivan Drago by Lundgren, who except for Stallone-backed projects like The Expendables franchise has been out of the mainstream limelight for twenty years. The aging action star has made a career playing the hero in direct-to-video action movies, so to see him getting the chance to act instead of perform is a rare treat. Wisely, Creed II uses him sparingly and keeps his dialogue at a minimum (half of which is Russian), maintaining Rocky IV’s mythical qualities of Ivan Drago’s Frankensteinian persona. If a Rocky/Creed fan were to have mockingly predicted the plot of Creed II knowing that Stallone would be writing it, what eventually came to pass wouldn’t have been that far off. (Jokes abound that Creed III will see Adonis fighting the son of Clubber Lang.) But Stallone, who continues to surprise in the franchise he knows better than anyone else, has helped usher in one more respectable entry in the face of a gimmicky plot.

Creed II boasts a very solid, stable, and bright image, and contains the kind of disciplined and specific cinematography essayed in the previous movie, only Caple Jr. embraces the glitz and flashiness of the final throwdown between Adonis and Viktor. Wonderfully complementing this visual component is the musical score by returning Swedish composer Ludwig Göransson, who revisits some of his earlier themes (which were a spin on those by original composer Bill Conti) to create a score that is cinematically stirring, but peppered with hip-hop influences in ways that never feel exploitative or commercial.

Creed II is a welcome addition to the series, and, in spite of Stallone’s threat to retire the character again (this time for good), it probably won’t be the last word on Adonis Creed. Here’s hoping that Creed director Ryan Coogler returns to helm the third (and final?) entry and complete his intended trilogy.

CREED (2015)

Early reaction to the announcement of Creed, described more as a spin-off than a sequel to the long-running Rocky franchise, was understandably cynical. After all, Rocky creator and caretaker Sylvester Stallone had resurrected the character ten years previous, after several entries showcasing diminishing returns, to say goodbye to the most enduring character of his career—and in a final sequel that would hopefully provide some damage control to the inherent silliness the Rocky franchise had accumulated. Rocky Balboa was a fitting end to a character’s thirty year saga which saw the punchy boxer who stole America’s hearts fight from the very bottom to the very top, and then back down again. But above all else, it was just a fine film, with unexpected melancholy, beauty, and that Capra-esque goodness in which the character of Rocky Balboa has been ensconced since the first time he stepped into the ring. A lot of this trepidation following Creed’s announcement was because of its possible undoing of such a satisfying conclusion to one of cinema’s most iconic characters. Fans of the series had long seen just how wrong sequels can go, and because Rocky Balboa felt like lightning, it was unlikely that same kind of lightning would strike twice with another risky entry. 

As the character of Rocky Balboa has done time and time again, we were once again very very surprised by the underdog we never saw coming.

From the duo behind 2013’s wrenching Fruitvale Station, writer/director Ryan Coogler and superstar-in-training Michael B. Jordan, comes the best entry in the Rocky franchise since the 1976 original—one that meets the beauty and drive of Rocky Balboa in every way, but also exceeds it. Creed contains real power, contained in every single piece of construct, from the unexpectedly emotional performances and sequences—including the most poignant and deeply moving training montage yet in a Rocky film—to the non-stop, unbroken fighting scenes in the ring.

Originally sold more as a spin-off—a soft reboot of sorts, which is a move many studios are going for these days, in case you haven’t noticed—fans of the franchise will be relieved to know that Creed is a Rocky movie through and through, despite being the first Rocky film not written and directed by Stallone. Though Jordan’s namesake is the lead character, and Stallone’s boxer-cum-trainer Rocky Balboa has transitioned to supporting role, nothing about Creed is ever so foreign and different that it feels as if Rocky is existing in a strange alternate film universe. If there is any film franchise that has a feeling, it’s Rocky, and if there’s ever been a sequel/reboot/spin-off that so ably captured that same feeling, it’s Creed. Even if Rocky’s story as a boxer looking to prove his worth may have come to a satisfying end, Creed proved that, though his story as the headliner and focus may be done, his life has continued outside of that limelight, and there was still a story to tell—still with conflicts for him to overcome.

One of the most rewarding things about Creed is its ability to surprise. A more-than-spiritual Rocky 7 of sorts, it not only ably beats the sequel curse, but manages to neutralize and embrace the very specific and very silly sequel that has given Creed its main conflict. Rocky IV, aka America: The Movie, has long since been considered one of the more favored Rocky movies—not because it’s good in the same sense that the original was (because ha ha, no way in hell), but because it filtered the spirit of Rocky through a heightened and cartoony conflict and achieved pure lowest-common denominator status. It was a film filled with nonstop training montages, “Eye of the Tiger,” Christmas!, and Dolph Lundgren as a Frankenstein’s monosyllabic monster Soviet boxer Ivan Drago. Rocky IV is iconic, beloved, and very stupid. Which is what makes Creed even more of a surprise. Newer audiences unaware of previous Rocky films, including Rocky IV, might not know that the references made to Johnson’s father, Apollo Creed, dying in the ring, don’t play out in their imaginations the same way they played out on theater screens in 1985. Newer audiences might picture a long, drawn out, gritty, bloody, emotionally wrenching sequence which sees Apollo dying before horrified audiences, but what actually happened—Apollo dancing around on a levitating stage with James Brown and mascots dressed as Uncle Sam, pretty much tiring himself out before he gets in the ring to be instantly killed—is, again, much stupider. That Creed manages to build such a poignant conflict with such emotional weight off such a stupid development in the Rocky series was nothing anyone could have ever seen coming—let alone it being something to celebrate.

And from there the surprises continue: Michael B. Jordan’s intimidating physical form and his dedication to the role, Stallone’s devastating turn as an aged Rocky fighting a battle of his own—in a performance even his most ardent fans didn’t think he was capable of at this point in his career—and most effective, that we can leave a theater as Creed’s closing credits roll on screen, not just having loved what we’d witnessed for the previous two hours, but billowing with that exhilarating reminder of why we love movies in the first place.

For the last ten years, studios have been looking to properties they own in an effort to resurrect them for new audiences. Though many of these attempts have resulted in underwhelming efforts, Warner Bros. continues to prove they are the king at breathing new life into old ideas, resurrecting dormant franchises like Batman, Mad Max, and now, Rocky. Creed's success with both critics and audiences ensured that Adonis Johnson and Rocky Balboa would return. But in the same way Creed successfully embodied the Rocky spirit, critics and audiences held out hope that future installments would have the humility to look past the dollar signs and avoid the same mistakes that the elder Rocky franchise had made.