Creed
Creed, directed by Ryan Coogler, is an opulent act of mythological trespass—a hallowed pilgrimage into the extended universe of American pugilism wherein canon is treated less like scripture and more like a suggestion scrawled in the margins of a VHS box. It is, in essence, fanfiction—but not the wattpad variety that pairs Rocky with a barista in Philly. No, this is the kind of fanfiction that rises like Lazarus in compression shorts, gripping the mic with trembling hands and declaring, “What if Apollo Creed had a secret posthumous lovechild no one ever mentioned… ever?”
That’s right. Adonis Johnson, a bastard forged in the chaotic crucible of offscreen infidelity, now bears the weight of an entire franchise like Atlas holding up a Philadelphia skyline. Creed does not so much follow Rocky as it hijacks Rocky IV in particular, dragging its Cold War corpse out of the snow, whispering “What did it mean?” and then crafting an elegy out of protein shakes, father wounds, and Meek Mill needle drops.
Michael B. Jordan is, without hyperbole, one of the last real-deal movie stars—a dwindling breed somewhere between demigod and brand ambassador. Don’t believe me? Check the Sinners box office numbers and get back to me. He is sculpted charisma, the kind of actor who doesn’t just perform on camera but occupies it, colonizes it. In a cinematic era increasingly dominated by IP synergy and algorithmic casting, he has that rare gravitational pull where people show up to the theater because he’s in it, not because a spandex suit is.
And Creed was the coronation. Sure, Jordan had put in the work—there was Chronicle, which felt like the best X-Men knockoff your cousin directed after bingeing Akira, and there was That Awkward Moment, the kind of post-Apatow sex comedy that feels like it was edited on a treadmill. But those were appetizers. Creed was the feast.
It’s also worth noting that his co-stars from those earlier flicks—Miles Teller and Zac Efron—both kind of fumbled the bag. Teller’s doing prestige detours like The Offer while occasionally popping up in aircraft carriers (Top Gun: Maverick), and Efron’s been trapped in a purgatory of streaming sludge, playing wrestlers and Ted Bundy with the same dead-eyed glisten. Meanwhile, Jordan stepped into a spin-off of a legacy franchise and somehow made it his own. He became the face of a franchise that wasn’t his to begin with—and in doing so, proved he didn’t need a cape, a lightsaber, or a Batmobile. Just gloves, grief, and a camera.
I’m not especially kind to late-period Stallone. Most of his post-Cobra filmography feels like a protein shake spiked with expired patriotism and a 3rd grader’s understanding of geopolitics. Outside of Rocky, Demolition Man, and maybe The Expendables 2 (a movie that succeeds only because it knows it’s stupid), there’s very little in the Stallone canon that doesn’t feel like a cry for help rendered in slow motion and gunfire. I’ve heard F.I.S.T. might be my bag, but it’s been sitting in my mental queue next to dental surgery and that book everyone says “gets better after the first 300 pages.”
But in Creed? Stallone is startlingly good. This is a performance scraped raw, like someone peeled away the action-hero wax figure and found a scared, exhausted man underneath. Rocky’s always been about emotional vulnerability—an open-hearted loser who accidentally punched his way into legend—but Stallone’s physical vulnerability in Creed is something else entirely. This isn’t just the boxer turned mentor; this is the man waiting to die in a folding chair in the corner, quietly watching the people he loves slip away one by one. He’s got cancer. Apollo and Paulie are gone. Adrian is buried. He is, in the most literal and spiritual sense, the last man standing—and it fucking sucks.
Other action icons have dipped a toe into this pool: Van Damme with JCVD, playing a fictionalized self with a monologue that should’ve won him awards if the universe had any justice. Schwarzenegger in Maggie, a zombie film with all the gore stripped out, leaving only tragically inept fatherhood and impotence behind. Even Dwayne Johnson and Bruce Willis have tried this mode—Snitch and Unbreakable, respectively—but their attempts (and Schwarzenegger’s, too, just a little) felt like controlled burns. Stallone, in Creed, sets himself on fire.
He’s not meta-commenting. He’s not winking. He’s not playing “Old Stallone.” He’s playing Rocky Balboa—alone, afraid, tired—and for once in his career, he doesn’t try to punch his way out of it. And if Creed ends up being the last great thing he ever does, then what a hell of a closing round.
The scene of Donnie and Bianca’s first date is holy sacrament, consecrated in cheesesteak grease and the low glow of city lights. When Bianca leans over the counter to explain the sacred anatomy of a Philly cheesesteak to Donnie as a very pleasant restaurant worker is making it, it isn't exposition—it’s ethnography. It’s the kind of moment that tells you everything about a place and its people without a single sweeping skyline shot or obligatory Liberty Bell insert.
For a director who was born in Oakland and studied in Sacramento—basically the bi-coastal opposite of Broad Street— Coogler somehow channels the soul of Philadelphia like he was raised on Wawa hoagies and Sixers heartbreak. Maybe that’s why Donnie hails from Los Angeles in the story: because Coogler understands that to truly arrive in Philly, you have to be an outsider willing to bleed for it. This is cinematic assimilation at its finest.
I honestly struggle to find a real flaw in Creed. Maybe—maybe—you could say it runs a little long, but that’s like complaining there’s too much honey on your baklava. Yes, Coogler tends to let his films breathe in 135-minute intervals (Fruitvale Station excluded because that one moves like a gut punch in real time), but what’s the alternative? Less time with Donnie shadowboxing his demons? Fewer scenes of Rocky quietly decaying like an old cathedral still somehow standing? Get out of here.
“Too long” only matters when a film has nothing to say or no one worth listening to. Creed has both in abundance. Let it be long. Let it take its time. If anything, it’s generous—Coogler gives us a full meal when he could’ve served a training montage and a cold platitude about heart. Instead, we sit in silence with Rocky as he eats soup alone. We watch Donnie shake under the weight of his father’s name. We live with these characters.
Let Creed stand as Exhibit A in the case for letting movies be “a little long.” Not bloated, not aimless, not “the studio made me stretch it to two hours so it could play fewer times a day and feel more Important”—but deliberately, lovingly long. The kind of long where you feel the minutes because you’re supposed to sit in them. Where story isn’t rushed to the next plot point like it’s being chased through airport security, but instead allowed to unfold with the grace and weight of real time.
Hollywood has developed a phobia of runtime unless it comes pre-packaged with elves or multiverse charts. The prevailing myth is that unless you’re Nolan or Cameron, you’ve got 100, maybe 105 minutes to say what you mean, kiss your leads, and roll credits before the audience starts checking their phones. But films like Creed push back against that neurosis. They say: what if we earned your attention instead of begging for it? What if we didn’t cut the scene where two people sit on a stoop and talk about death just because it slows the pace? What if time was a tool, not a liability?
A slightly longer runtime means we don’t just see Donnie become a boxer—we understand why he needs to. We don’t just hear Rocky talk about Adrian—we feel what it’s like to miss someone every time you put on your jacket. The added minutes aren’t filler. They’re where the soul lives.
So yeah, Creed is “a little long.” And thank God for that. We should be so lucky to have more movies that take their time, because time is what makes it cinema, not content.