Sylvester Stallone gives the most compelling and truthful performance of his career.

| Mar 7, 2017

Adonis and Rocky make one of the year's best cinematic pairings, their transition from strangers to acquaintances to partners to friends to something so much more absolutely exquisite.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Aug 18, 2016

It's a formula film, executed to near perfection. And it wields a secret weapon: our nostalgia for the original.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 12, 2016

Its own great, singular achievement, outside of the considerable iconography.

| Apr 30, 2016

with Creed, the series really has returned to its roots... there's an earthiness and street quality that we haven't witnessed since the 1976 original.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Feb 23, 2016

Creed is a sure-fire hit that's impossible to hate but I may have to punch the next person who tells me it made them cry.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 18, 2016

What follows may be familiar fare, but Coogler somehow manages to revivify the series, aided by a punchy turn from Jordan and deceptively complex support from Tessa Thompson ...

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 17, 2016

Surprisingly thoughtful and stylish.

| Jan 15, 2016

A shot of box-fresh blood.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 15, 2016

If you can stomach the schmaltz and suspend your disbelief in the face of the film's pounding predictability, you'll find plenty to enjoy.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 14, 2016

It's a relief to watch this likable boxing picture, which finds a way to evolve the Rocky franchise with humour and humility.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 14, 2016

Following the failure of the underrated Rocky Balboa, the Rocky series was on the canvas, the count nearing ten. Creed not only gets it - and Sly Stallone - back on its feet, but completely reinvigorates it.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 7, 2016

The surest sign that Coogler has honored his source material is that Creed is populist through and through. His achievement... is that he gives his audience exactly what they want and makes it feel like a gift rather than a bribe.

| Dec 7, 2015

Anyone hoping the franchise might open out into new thematic territory will be disappointed; this is the same old ritual, from the amped-up training sequences to the climactic title fight with its absurd number of punches landed in every round.

| Dec 3, 2015

The rapport between Stallone and Jordan is fabulous, especially in the old-school training scenes, chasing chickens to improve speed and all the rest, that pay homage to the original, Oscar-winning 1976 film.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Dec 1, 2015

Creed moves the Rocky franchise into the present and gives it a future; Coogler makes the story his own, even as he pays respect to what has gone before.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 1, 2015

Creed packs a serious punch, replete with crunching fight sequences captured in a probing, prowling style.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 1, 2015

It's an invigorating piece of nostalgia that fuels a bigger adrenaline rush with its climax than any big-budget blockbuster could provide.

| Nov 28, 2015

Coogler keeps everything moving so gracefully that by the end of Creed, we almost don't know what hit us.

| Nov 25, 2015

Whether the credit goes to the director or the actor or both, this is the performance of Stallone's career, one in which that age-defying orange body stays covered up but his sadness is in full view.

| Nov 25, 2015