Bookshelf Battle

Hold onto your zhopas, 3.5 readers.

BQB here with a review of “Creed 2.”

It’s funny. After “Creed 1” I was like, “Ha! Now Creed Jr. should go to Russia and kick Ivan Drago’s ass to avenge his father!”

Well, turns out Hollywood thinks just like I do.

Hard to believe, but I remember being a little kid in the movie theater watching Rocky and Ivan go at it and now so many years later I am watching their sons go at it and then returning to my blog to tell my 3.5 readers about it.

In case you forgot, in Rocky IV, during the 1980s Cold War era, Apollo dies in a fight against Ivan.  Rocky, Ivan’s couch, failed to throw in the towel and blames himself for Apollo’s death.  He then returns to Russia to train and fight Drago and bring back victory to America.  USA, USA, USA!

In this go around, we learn that the 1980s loss to Rocky caused Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren) to lose his standing, respect, and wife.  He had to flee to the Ukraine and live in poverty.  Among the ashes, he trains his son, Viktor, to rise and become a great boxer.

Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan), Rocky’s protégé, is challenged.  Blah, blah, blah, Rocky says no, Creed says yes, shit happens, will he live or die etc.

By now, the Rocky formula, after 8 films, is ingrained in our heads.  Someone ones to fight.  The fight looks insurmountable.  Death and destruction is likely in store for the hero.  The hero stands his ground.  He gets knocked down but he gets back up to take more punishment, thus a metaphor for life.  In the end, he wins the unlikely victory.

Hard to believe Rocky flicks are still being made after all these years but they are still going as strong as ever.  And after each one I’m like, “I can’t see how they could think of another one after this” but now I realize they will.

To the film’s credit, the Dragos are humanized.  In the original, Drago is shown to be a cold, uncaring monster, a product of Communism, the result of a government that was willing to divert all of its resources away from the poor and into a fighting machine that would wage war for the USSR’s honor.

In this installment, we see that Russia doesn’t like a failure.  While Rocky was able to walk away from boxing and open a restaurant, Drago has become a joke and wants his reputation back.  Viktor has trained his whole life for this and it hurts him that his mother (Brigette Nielson) left him.  Both are fighting for respect and it is weird…though you root for Creed, you also want an ending where the Dragos will be accepted by their country again.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy.  In theory, the idea of a sequel to Rocky IV in which the sons of Creed and Drago fight to avenge their fathers sounds idiotic and childish but in reality, they managed to pull it off, give it heart, and make it worthwhile.