And as Rocky teaches Adonis to man up and face his demons en route to his battle royale, he himself has to be encouraged to face one final battle: the kind of cancer that killed Adrian years before is now coursing through his own body. Sure, the illness is just as much Oscar bait as Eddie Redmayne transforming into a woman in "The Danish Girl," but there is a serious groundswell of support around Stallone's very fine work in this movie that could see him grabbing a Best Supporting Actor award at next year's Oscars.
That would be a well-deserved reward for the efforts of Coogler, who managed to make "Creed" as a reward for his prior success with Jordan, the 2013 modern classic "Fruitvale Station." The original "Rocky" movie from 1976 was the film that inspired Coogler to pursue a filmmaking career, and he had written "Creed" many years ago as a dream project he wanted to get down on paper but never dreamed would get made since Stallone had written every other film in the series himself.
But when Hollywood asked him what he wanted to do next after "Fruitvale," Coogler dug up his script for "Creed" and asked his agent to send it to Stallone. The result was a miracle: Stallone was so impressed by the writing that he not only signed up, but championed the project to his old studio.
With "Creed" now coming out on the night before Thanksgiving, he owes plenty of gratitude to Stallone. And with a movie this richly entertaining, filmgoers of all ages have something to be thankful for as well.
In keeping with the rest of the "Rocky" movie series, "Creed" has a minimum of foul language, with one barely discernible F word, a couple of S words and a brief and discreetly shown sex scene between Adonis and Bianca that cuts away before getting graphic. If you can handle the torrent of punch-pounding ring action in the final match, "Creed" is nearly perfectly acceptable entertainment for all ages.