Creed 2 Blu-ray Review

The following Blu-ray was provided to me by Warner Brothers for review.  Thoughts and opinions are my own.

80's nostalgia is at a peak right now.  From the Cobra Kai YouTube series, to the wave o new Masters of the Universe toys, everyone is going crazy or the 80's.  Well one o the best films o the 80's was, in my opinion Rocky 4.  Everyone loved it.  To this day its still beloved.  When I'm at the gym the soundtrack is still on my playlist. When Creed hit a few years ago it was no surprise a sequel would be made.  When it was announced that the plot would be Ivan Dragos son challenging Creed (Apollo's son) to a fight the anticipation was through the roof.

Creed 2 once again stars Michael B Jordan as Adonis Creed, who in the beginning of the film, with Rocky in his corner is able to capture the WBC Heavyweight title.  He propose to his girlfriend, who it turns out is pregnant and everything seems to be going fantastic.  Well over in the Soviet Union things aren't going good for Ivan Draago.  When Rocky beat him years ago he lost his wife, his country exiled him, he basically became a recluse.  He did however have a son named Viktor who he has been training to box.  Alter Viktor gets a nice string of wins a promoter brings him to America where he Challenges Creed to a match.

Now of course Creed wants to fight him, as he is the son of the man who killed his father, but Rocky refuses to train him as he remembers the toll his match with Ivan took on him. Creed goes to get the son of his late father to train him.  Unfortunately things go bad and during his match with Viktor he takes a horrible beating. Viktor punches him when he is down causing a DQ allowing Adonis to keep his belt but its clear he was the loser of the fight alter taking such a horrible beating.

So naturally Rocky returns, trains him and it sets up for the rematch, that as fate and luck would have it takes place in Russia just like in Rocky 4.

Now I know this all sounds amazing, and yes a lot of it is.  The fights, and the training montage of Rocky and Creed in the desert are amazing.  Problem is there is a lot of down time in between.  Creed 2 clocks in a little over 2 hours. Now a good hour and 10min of that is just Creed feeling sorry for himself, and Rocky wandering in and out, and Creed learning to be a dad to his new baby, and a lot of other simply boring stuff.

Don't get me wrong.  I liked the film.  The two fights alone are so well done it makes it a must see picture.  However the beauty of Rocky 4 was how basic it was.  Friend has a match, he dies, Rocky has a musical montage thinking about his friend, then a musical montage training, then a more high energy musical montage of him training harder, then the big fight.  Now see Rocky did all this in like 90min.  Creed 2 as I stated is much longer, and without all those musical montage's.  Its still good, it just doesn't capture the energy of Rocky 4.

The acting is top notch.  I have to give a lot of credit to Dolph Lundgren who does a fantastic job of a disgraced man trying to regain his glory through his son.  Stallone is top notch as Rocky, and Michael B Jordan is once again great as Adonis Creed. The story and acting are there, just a bit to drawn out.

Warner Brothers, as always has done an amazing job with the Blu-ray transfer.  The picture looks and sounds better than it did in the theater. The sounds of the fights and the booming music blasted out of my surround sound making it feel as though I was in the movie myself.

Definitely worth the watch for new and old fans alike.  Creed 2 is a well acted film with great choreography, a great soundtrack, and a great story.  My only issue was that it moved a little to slow for my taste.  Worth the watch.

Overall 2.5 out of 5 Stars!