Creed is "Rocky" Full Circle, Just Like Star Wars 7

Remember when fans of Star Wars complained that The Force Awakens was a bit too much like the first movie?

Well, what is Creed but the Rocky story, only this time it's based on Apollo Creed's son? No one seemed to complain about that.
For example:

When we first meet Adonis (Michael B. Jordan), he's been in and out of foster homes and gets in a lot of fights. When he gets older, he's making money fighting in Mexico, and doing quite well, It's not against high-quality opponents, but he's fighting. That's not too far off from when we first meet Rocky, whose boxing career is on the way down and also has to be an enforcer for a loan shark.

When Adonis moves to Philadephia to hopefully get some tips from Rocky, he meets Bianca (Tessa Thompson), a singer who has progressive deafness. That's an interesting contrast to Adrian, a shy girl who "filled gaps" for Rocky.

Apollo Creed chose Rocky as his opponent to replace the one who was injured just before the fight. In Creed,  Ricky Conlan (Tony Bellew) chose Adonis because Ricky accidentally injured his opponent at the pre-fight press conference, and he wanted to exploit Adonis' connection with Creed.

Aside from that, the movie takes different moves to tell Adonis' story. He actually has a good job at a financial firm before he decides to switch to boxing full-time. He plugs away at Rocky before he decides to train Adonis. Jordan does a fine job as a man who wants to create his own legacy, while eventually learning how to embrace his father's name.

Still, Stallone's performance blew me away. When Entertainment Weekly handicapped the Supporting Actor race, it looked at how he played Rocky Balboa differently compared to the previous six movies. Rocky was shown as more vunerable, especially when he faces health problems. However, when he's training Adonis, his spirit is revived in a big way, more than when he did the same for Tommy Morrison in Rocky V. It's a great new take on a classic movie character, and it may be enough to get Oscar Gold in February. Mark Ruffalo's performance in Spotlight is still formidable, though.

As for the chance we'll get a Creed 2, it might be possible, Maybe this time he'll be light heavyweight champ, and Conlan will challenge him. We'll see, but Creed is still a fine boxing movie, much more than Rocky 6 1/2.

Way Overdue Comic-Con Entry About Expendables and RED

I know this is two weeks late, but it's also relevant since one of the movies I will rant about is coming next week.
As I said before, the worst thing about Comic-Con is that people are spending more time standing in line for panels they wind up missing. That's why we should thank God for YouTube, which allows us to see the moments we missed.

However, I did see three movie panels from Hall H. This included Angelina Jolie plugging her new movie, Salt.



I was more interested in The Expendables, the manly movie that will kick Julia Roberts' scrawny.....movie. That goes for Scott Pilgrim, too.
Sure, those guys will pick up their fans, but who could possibly resist a movie with the most famous action stars under one roof?
Here are some of my favorite pictures from that panel.



Stallone ready for business



Gets a hug from Bruce Willis, who was part of the RED panel, while Dolph Lungren looks on



Mount Rushmore of Kick-Ass, with Stallone, Lungren and Randy Couture...and a bit of Stone Cold Steve Austin



To be fair, here's all of Stone Cold

To be honest, I am more interested in RED, coming in October. Seeing Bruce Willis and Morgan Freeman kicking butt at their age is one reason, but this will get people to the movie:



This woman with a machine gun in one hand, and a tea cup in the other.
Of course, after Helen Mirren pulls this off, Meryl Streep will have to be in a movie where she's tossing hand grades right and left...and she'll probably make sure that happens.



Seeing Helen with Bruce Willis will be great, too, but imagine John Malkovich with as the NRA with legs. He wasn't at Comic-Con, but it's something to anticipate.



Let's not forget Mary Louise Parker, who's a low-level CIA employee who sides with RED after figuring out that killing ex-agents considered too old to fight back is just wrong. It also doesn't work.

Warren Ellis, who wrote the original comic book series, was also there. He admitted that he did this for the money, which is why the movie is very different than the original comics. Still, it's because this man wanted to fill his wallet that we'll see The Talented Mr. Ripley turn bad guys into hamburger, and The Queen into Dame Rambo.
Come to think of it, could Diana Rigg be just as deadly as Grandma Emma Peel? Someone will ask her after this movie opens...and makes a pile of dough.