Legacy-quels (not my term) are all the rage now. Instead of rebooting a franchise with a cold restart, studios now aim to continue the story of the original with a strong focus on key nostalgic elements; go into the future while acknowledging the past. Or, perhaps a better wording would be "obsessed with the past". In 2015 alone we had Jurassic World, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Terminator Genisys and Spectre, and the only one that was really concerned with forging forward was Star Wars; all the others let the references be the meat of it. Needless to say, Creed blows them out of the water. Not only does it use its series' classic elements carefully, justifying Rocky as a character in his own right and using the iconic score so sparingly that when it does finally show up it feels fully earned, but it deals with that high pressure of riffing on the past head on. Adonis fears living in his father's shadow, taking the name Johnson and keeping his true parentage a secret, but over the course of the film learns he can't let the past define him - no matter who he is, he has it in him to be his own man. The movie likewise has a lot of innate baggage, but in embracing them it's serving as a meta-textual embodiment of its key narrative theme. In fact, it manages to even touch on the altering of the past, adding real depth to major events from some of the more ridiculous entries in the series. This focus seems so well managed because, for all that came before and its strong links to the past, Creed feels indelibly new. It's the heart-felt continuation of a classic franchise, sure, but it's also an exciting look towards the future with a new generation. Here's to Creeds II-V! Creed is in US cinemas now and UK cinemas from 15th January.
