Critic Reviews

By the time Coogler wraps things up, his film manages the difficult trick of looking back with earned nostalgia and standing alone as a genuinely strong dramatic piece.

Creed is corny like the old Rocky films, but riveting like the old Rocky films, too.

There are as many quietly effective moments as there are stand-up-and-cheer moments, and they’re all handled with skill and dexterity on both sides of the camera.

Creed is a dandy piece of entertainment, soothingly old-fashioned and bracingly up-to-date.

Rocky might not be the brightest guy, but he knows things. He has his limitations, but he is, in his own way, extraordinary, and when we look at his/Stallone’s face, we can have no doubt that Rocky has gone through life and learned things. He has been awake all these years, and growing. With no exaggeration, this is a beautiful and moving thing to see.

Often, extending a film franchise signifies a lack of imagination. But Creed is a knockout.

One of the Ryan Coogler film's greatest traits is its reticence, its refusal to say 10 words when two will do, or to say one word when silence says it all.

I feared signing on to Creed might derail Coogler’s and Jordan’s careers. Instead, this revitalizing crowd-pleaser solidifies my belief that these two have the potential to create really great art.

Creed mingles go-for-broke romance with bloody pugilist thrills—but instead of feeling like a rehash, it works like gangbusters. Coogler honors and builds upon the Rocky formula so that it feels both comfortingly old-fashioned and bracingly new.

Ingeniously, Coogler has transformed “Rocky”—the modern cinematic myth that, perhaps more than any other, endures as a modern capitalist Horatio Alger story of personal determination and sheer will—into a vision of community and opportunity, connections and social capital, family and money.