Review: In ‘Creed,’ Rocky’s Back, as a Mentor, Not a Fighter

At a recent screening of “Creed,” as the familiar fanfare of Bill Conti’s beloved “Rocky” score signaled the start of the final round of the big fight, the audience burst into spontaneous applause. This was no sneak-preview crowd, primed with free admission and popcorn, but a room full of critics and journalists armored in professional skepticism. A cynic might say that the cheering was a Pavlovian reflex set off by a piece of commercial entertainment in the hands of a skilled, manipulative director. This cynic, however, was too busy choking up and clapping to form the thought.

In 2015, whether by coincidence or by the mysterious movements of the dialectic, a bunch of semi-dormant franchises have come roaring back to pop-cultural life, enrolling legions of new fans and managing both to transcend and to exploit the nostalgia of Gen-X old-timers. There was “Mad Max: Fury Road” and then “Jurassic World.” The next “Star Wars” arrives in a few weeks. In the meantime we have “Creed,” which writes another chapter in the saga of Rocky Balboa and which is something that Italian Stallion’s devotees have not seen in a long time, perhaps since the original “Rocky” way back in 1976: a terrific boxing movie.

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