Film review: "Creed"

“Creed” is a self-conscious attempt to bring closure to the Rocky Balboa saga, by depicting the aged boxer passing on the torch to another underdog. It’s a classic story of beginnings and endings, fathers and sons, starting a new chapter and closing an old one.

It’s well-made, stirring, and would make for a fitting summation to a 40-year journey.

(Though as long as Sylvester Stallone, who’ll be 70 next year, is capable of shambling in front of the camera and mouthing that iconic stumblebum patois, don’t bet on this being the last “Rocky” movie.)

Just how important is Rocky to us? He’s probably the most famous sports figure who isn’t actually real. Check that; in many ways, you could argue he is real. Certainly his influence is – on movies, the sport of boxing and the city of Philadelphia.

There’s a scene in “Creed” where people are shown having their pictures taken in front of a statue of Rocky Balboa at the Philadelphia Museum of Art – the place where he famously ascended those steps in the first movie. It’s supposed to demonstrate how Rocky, now long out of the boxing game and quietly running a little restaurant named Adrian’s, became a legend.

But that’s an actual statue in front of the actual museum, put there as part of a scene from “Rocky III” -- demonstrating that myths can turn into reality, and vice-versa.

The film stars Michael B. Jordan, one of the finest young actors working in film today. Director Ryan Coogler, who co-wrote the script with Aaron Covington, also directed Jordan in the powerful “Fruitvale Station.” Tonally the two films are somewhat similar, in that Jordan’s character is a wayward soul trying to improve himself, only to be pushed down by an uncaring and capricious system.

Adonis Johnson is the illegitimate son of Apollo Creed, Rocky’s opponent from the first two movies who eventually became his closest friend. He died in the ring before Adonis was born, who grew up angry in the child welfare system before being taken in my Apollo’s widow (Phylicia Rashad.)

“Donny” was raised in comfort and security – unlike Rocky, the Creeds kept their boxing dough – but has a Drago-sized chip on his shoulder. He doesn’t feel like he belongs to anyone, is both proud and ashamed of his heritage. He fights low-end professional bouts in Mexico while working a day job in the financial sector.

After running his mouth and being humiliated in the ring by a legitimate boxer, Adonis decides to strive for his dream and make it on his own as a fighter, without using dad’s name as a stepping stone. He moves to a cruddy apartment in Philly, and enlists Rocky to train him. Donny calls him “Unc” and regards Balboa as family, though Rocky is reluctant to reenter the world where he’s lost so much.

Stallone is regretful and poignant, playing a man who doesn’t really have much to live for, but presses on because he doesn’t know how to quit. In Adonis he sees a chance to nurture, to hone and to protect – i.e., to be a father again.

Of course, because this is a Rocky movie it ends with a fight for the championship. How exactly one goes from novice to contender is left deliberately murky. A romance with the cool downstairs girl (Tessa Thompson) has an obligatory feel – why must there always be a love interest?

The bad guy is Ricky “Pretty Boy” Conlan, played by real-life fighter Tony Bellew. He’s a Cockney brawler looking for a quick payday owing to pressing circumstances, and he and his manager (Graham McTavish) see using the Creed name as a way to drum up exposure. Rocky sees what’s happening, doesn’t like it, but gives Donny the space to make his own decisions – while having to make some hard choices of his own.

“Creed” isn’t up there with the first four Rocky movies. But it summons their spirit, and adds a few grace notes of its own. “Rocky” was the story of a guy who fought because he had nothing else; this is the tale of a man with choices who traces in his father’s footsteps in order to become his own man.

Just as it was in 1976, there are different forms of victory.

Review: "Blackhat"

Michael Mann is a sumptuous visual stylist ("Heat," "Manhunter") who sometimes has trouble with the ABCs of storytelling. Case in point: "Blackhat," a cyber thriller set mostly in China and Indonesia that wavers between confusion and utter incoherence.

When you're not struggling to comprehend dialogue uttered by non-native English speakers, you'll find yourself trying to remember all the various plot threads and centers of power at play. This movie is a double-dip into ponderous bewilderment.

Chris Hemsworth plays Nicholas Hathaway, a hacker doing 15 years' hard time in prison for past antics. And right now I know you're thinking to yourself, "Chris Hemsworth? The blond dude who plays Thor? Looks like a surfer on steroids? Not exactly what I picture a computer nerd looking like."

And it's true, Hemsworth is believable neither as a guy hunched over a laptop typing code out at a furious pace, nor as a toughened inmate with killer hand-to-hand combat skills who somehow manages to maintain salon-quality hair and a torso completely waxed of man fur. That prison must have a helluva commissary.

Anyway, the story (screenplay by Morgan Davis Foehl) starts with a cyber attack on a Chinese nuclear reactor resulting in an explosion and near meltdown. This is illustrated by a long, tedious CG animation sequence taking us deep into the inner recesses of a computer chip, which resembles the labyrinthine goblin tunnels of "The Lord of the Rings."

The Chinese and American governments reluctantly agree to team up -- or "liaise," as they call it, which sounds dirtier than it is -- and decide that Hathaway is the only guy in the world who can  break the code of the mysterious villain, or blackhat. He's recruited by Chen Dawai (Leehom Wang), a captain in the Chinese anti-hacking agency who also happened to be Hathaway's college roommate.

It seems that back when they were young and foolish the pair wrote the RAT program -- remote access tool -- that the blackhat has incorporated into his stratagem. So they feel a sort of obligation to bring him in. Plus, Hathaway gets sprung from jail if they're successful.

Tagging along, for reasons that are never made entirely clear, is Chen's kid sister, Lien (Wei Tang), who soon falls madly in love with Hathaway, adding an extra wrinkle to his dilemma: if he doesn't catch the bad guy, he goes back to prison and their romance dies.

Viola Davis has a solid turn as Barrett, the FBI agent assigned to the case, who knows when to lead the dog and when to give him slack. I also liked Holt McCallany as the gruff, stolid U.S. marshal; officially, he's there to make sure Hathaway doesn't escape but morphs into his defender.

Soon the intrepid group is flying to all sorts of locales, running down leads and getting into scrapes with henchmen. Hathaway proves to be an old-school combatant, preferring magazines strapped to his body and an improvised shiv instead of body armor and a gun. Kinda strange, considering they're able to procure a private jet, new computers and vehicles on the fly.

Occasionally "Blackhat" finds some genuinely tense moments, such as when Hathaway must hack into a super-secret NSA database to further their manhunt, or a couple of shootouts with jarring results. Here Mann reveals his chops as a filmmaker who instinctively understands the weight and flow of action scenes.

The rest of the time, though, it's an overlong head-scratcher that's pretty to look at but makes little sense.