Rocky: Why The Creed Reboot Worked (But Rocky V Didn’t)

The Rocky franchise hit its nadir with Rocky V, but the spin-off Creed did what it failed to. Sylvester Stallone’s alma mater film series, the Rocky franchise, introduced the world to the kind-hearted small-time boxer Rocky Balboa. With the nickname of the Italian Stallion, Rocky would get a shot at the big time by being handpicked to fight the reigning world heavyweight boxing champion Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers).

Rocky‘s success led to a series that would encompass his entire professional boxing career. The release of Rocky V in 1990 was where the franchise seemed to have run its course, underperforming at the box office and being generally poorly received. Sylvester Stallone himself has gone on to speak derisively of Rocky V and its impact on the series (though Stallone’s pick for the worst movie of his filmography has gone to Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot.)

The Rocky series would later make a comeback, parallel to Stallone himself, in 2006’s Rocky Balboa, while Creed joined the Rocky franchise in 2015 and completely jolted it into new life. The film was Michael B. Jordan’s breakout as Adonis, the son of Apollo who trains to enter professional boxing under Rocky. Creed II followed in 2018, with 2022’s Creed III seeing Jordan make his directorial debut. While that shows how much the Rocky franchise has been re-invigorated, Creed also carried over a few elements from Rocky V, and executed them much more sharply.

The Rocky Movies Are A Classic Underdog Story

Rocky captured the hearts of audiences around the world with its story of a man facing impossible odds in every facet of his life. Even in losing his first fight with Apollo Creed, Rocky achieves a huge victory simply by going the distance as no one else ever has. In their rematch in Rocky II, the Italian Stallion was still an underdog against the extremely skilled boxing champ Apollo, but his determination this time finally saw him win. Though Rocky was finally on top of the world, the later Rocky films didn’t shed the underdog concept.

Rocky III put the Italian Stallion into his first rematch to regain his title after his loss to Clubber Lang (Mr. T). Rocky IV raised the stakes to global levels, pitting Rocky against his most challenging opponent ever in the Russian boxer Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren). In Rocky IV, Rocky wasn’t simply fighting the man who killed Apollo in the ring. His and Drago’s match was essentially a proxy fight for the U.S. and the Soviet Union during the Cold War’s peak. Rocky Balboa also later reshaped the series’ underdog formula, with the skilled but aging Rocky fighting for one last boxing match. In some form or another, the Rocky movies have always been an underdog story, which was a big part of where Rocky V dropped the ball.

Rocky V Forgot Everything That Made The Movies Great

Rocky V sent the former world heavyweight champion back to square one, with he and Adrian (Talia Shire) falling on hard times. As he begins to get back on his feet as a boxing trainer, he starts transitioning into a mentor role with his relationship with Tommy “The Machine” Gunn (Tommy Morrison). Unfortunately, Tommy is seduced by the riches promised by manager George Washington Duke (Richard Gant). Rocky’s relationship with his son Robert (Sage Stallone) also becomes strained, right alongside his falling out with Tommy. Unfortunately, the conflict of Rocky V didn’t have the same impact as its predecessors.

The politics of boxing and the avarice it can bring could’ve made for a compelling story as Tommy Gunn accumulated boxing victories. Sadly, Rocky V also cut off Rocky’s first real attempt at mentorship at the knees. Rocky V ‘s story also felt out of sync with the trajectory of the series, and more fitting for a third or fourth installment. Rocky V‘s climactic street fight didn’t stick the landing like previous finales in the series had, either. Most of all, Rocky V needlessly turned Tommy and Rocky into enemies. This effectively squandered what could’ve been an organic transition from fighter to mentor for Rocky, blended with another underdog uphill battle. With all of its shortcomings, Rocky V left the series, for the first time, with a sense that the energy that gave it life was gone.

Creed Reinvigorated The Franchise By Shifting The Focus

After Rocky made his boxing comeback in Rocky Balboa, Creed took the concept Rocky V dropped the ball on and ran with it. The death of Rocky’s beloved wife Adrian left the former heavyweight champ lonely, while he’d also distanced himself from boxing. With the arrival of Adonis in his life, Rocky had motivation to re-enter the boxing world for the first time in years. Creed‘s focal point put Rocky and Adonis on two parallel arcs of establishing their legacies, and doing so in two different ways. For Adonis, his fight was all about honoring the boxing legacy of his father while establishing his own. For Rocky, it was about showing that his natural fighting spirit never left him.

Adonis’ “If I fight, you fight” ultimatum also finally compelled Rocky to undergo treatment for his cancer. By the end of Creed, both Adonis and Rocky had solidified their legacies, both to themselves and the boxing world. Adonis still faced a new challenge in Creed II with his fight with Viktor Drago (Florian Munteanu). The fight was predicated upon the earlier boxing match of Ivan Drago and Apollo, and later Rocky’s defeat of Drago. Showing that there’s always room to learn and grow, Rocky sees that Adonis’ hot temper leads to his downfall in the first fight, with he and Adonis refining his fighting style for their rematch. The Creed movies, in being very literal legacy sequels, told the story that Rocky V was distracted from, and gave the franchise a completely renewed modern life.

With how much Creed kicked the Rocky series back into overdrive, Adonis is becoming as much of a boxing movie icon as Rocky himself. His debut in Creed and continued anchoring of its sequels also highlight a reversal of fortunes many would never have expected the Rocky movies to make. The franchise once seemed like it had reached the end of the road in Rocky V, but the Rocky series’ continuation in the Creed movies show that it’s never too late to make a comeback.

About The Author

Brad Curran
(720 Articles Published)

Growing up, Brad developed an innate love of movies and storytelling, and was instantly enamored with the world of adventure while following the exploits of Indiana Jones, Japanese kaiju, and superheroes. Today, Brad channels his thoughts on all manner of movies, from comic book films, sci-fi thrillers, comedies, and everything in between through his writings on Screen Rant. Brad also offers philosophical musings on martial arts and the filmographies of everyone from Jackie Chan to Donnie Yen on Kung Fu Kingdom, where he’s also had the privilege of interviewing many of the world’s great stunt professionals, and hearing plenty of gripping stories on injuries incurred in their line of work and the intricacies of designing the acts of death defiance he first thrilled to as a youngster. When he’s not writing, Brad enjoys going on a ride with the latest action hit or Netflix original, though he’s also known to just pop in “The Room” from time to time. Follow Brad on Twitter @BradCurran.

See also  El Camino Soundtrack: Every Song In The Breaking Bad Movie

More From Brad Curran