{"id":10523,"date":"2018-11-21T11:21:33","date_gmt":"2018-11-21T15:21:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stallonezone.com\/wordpress\/?p=10523"},"modified":"2018-11-21T11:21:33","modified_gmt":"2018-11-21T15:21:33","slug":"creed-ii-2018-z-view","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stallonezone.com\/wordpress\/2018\/11\/21\/creed-ii-2018-z-view\/","title":{"rendered":"“Creed II” (2018) \/ Z-View"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Creed II<\/strong><\/em> (2018)<\/p>\n

Director<\/strong>: Steven Caple Jr.<\/p>\n

Screenplay<\/strong>: Sylvester Stallone,\u00a0 Juel Taylor<\/p>\n

Stars<\/strong>: Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson,\u00a0Phylicia Rashad, Dolph Lundgren,\u00a0Florian Munteanu,\u00a0Russell Hornsby, Wood Harris,\u00a0Milo Ventimiglia, Andre Ward and\u00a0Brigitte Nielsen.<\/p>\n

The Pitch<\/strong>: \u201cThe Rocky\/Creed saga continues!\u201d<\/p>\n

Tagline<\/strong>: None.<\/p>\n

The Overview<\/strong>: Beware of Spoilers\u2026<\/p>\n

After winning the Heavyweight Championship, Adonis Creed under the tutelage\u00a0of Rocky Balboa is on top of the world.\u00a0 He’s ready to marry Bianca and start a family, his step-mother has accepted that he’s a fighter and Rocky is doing better with his cancer battle.\u00a0 The bad thing about being on top of the world is there is always someone who wants to take your spot.<\/p>\n

Victor Drago, son of Ivan Drago is a monster of a man.\u00a0 He’s been winning fights by devastating knockouts and has his sights on Creed’s title.\u00a0 A Drago\/Creed match-up would be a boxing fan’s and promoter’s dream.\u00a0 Ivan Drago killed Apollo Creed in an exhibition boxing match.\u00a0 Rocky traveled to Russia to fight and beat Ivan Drago in a follow-up match.\u00a0 After that fight Rocky was never quite the same and Drago disappeared from the boxing scene.\u00a0 A fight between Apollo’s son (who is trained by Rocky) against Victor Drago, (trained by his father, the man who killed Apollo) is a bout that sells itself.<\/p>\n

The idea that Drago didn’t just lose the fight to Rocky Balboa, he lost everything – his standing in his country, the privilege\u00a0being the best fighter brought him, the honor and prestige granted a superior athlete and most importantly his wife.\u00a0 Drago has lived with this hurt and humiliation for over 30 years.\u00a0 It has hardened him and made him bitter.\u00a0 Drago has, as Rocky says, “raised (his son) in hate.”\u00a0 Ivan and Victor travel to the US to issue a personal challenge to Adonis who instantly wants to take the fight.\u00a0 Rocky doesn’t want it and refuses to train Adonis.\u00a0 To give away more would be wrong.<\/p>\n

Any time a sequel follows a successful, wildly popular movie, expectations are high.\u00a0 Creed II<\/em> lives up to them.\u00a0 Of course the actors do a great job – the movie is again perfectly cast with all the main players returning to reprise their characters.\u00a0 New additions, Russell Hornsby as promoter Buddy Marcell and\u00a0Florian ‘Big Nasty’ Munteanu as Victor Drago are excellent in their roles and add to the Rocky\/Creed universe.<\/p>\n

The story rises well above the reprise of a Creed\/Drago replay.\u00a0 Creed I<\/em>I\u00a0<\/em>has (as it should) call backs to the earlier Rocky<\/em> movies but they feel natural.\u00a0 Hats off to screenwriters Stallone and Taylor for avoiding clich\u00e9s,\u00a0providing unexpected turns and excellent dialogue. Director,\u00a0Steven Caple Jr., had big shoes to fill and does so.\u00a0 Sly Stallone,\u00a0nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Creed,\u00a0<\/em>should get a nomination for Creed II<\/em> and this time he should win.\u00a0 Also, Dolph Lundgren should be given kudos — his scene with Sly early on was my favorite of the movie.<\/p>\n

The movie works so well because it doesn’t just focus on the fight drama.\u00a0 Each of the major characters has a life beyond just the scenes that they appear in.\u00a0 \u00a0Milo Ventimiglia and\u00a0Brigitte Nielsen appearances were icing on the cake.<\/p>\n

Creed II<\/em> will of course appeal to fans of the Rocky\/Creed series, and to all who love great movies.\u00a0 Bring on Creed III<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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Rating:\u00a0<\/strong>
\n\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Creed II (2018) Director: Steven Caple Jr. Screenplay: Sylvester Stallone,\u00a0 Juel Taylor Stars: Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson,\u00a0Phylicia Rashad, Dolph Lundgren,\u00a0Florian Munteanu,\u00a0Russell Hornsby, Wood Harris,\u00a0Milo Ventimiglia, Andre Ward and\u00a0Brigitte Nielsen. The Pitch: \u201cThe Rocky\/Creed saga continues!\u201d Tagline: None. The Overview: Beware of Spoilers\u2026 After winning the Heavyweight Championship, Adonis Creed under the tutelage\u00a0of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[161,20,144],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-161","category-celebs","category-creed-2"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3r2Pe-2JJ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallonezone.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallonezone.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallonezone.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallonezone.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallonezone.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10523"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stallonezone.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10524,"href":"https:\/\/stallonezone.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10523\/revisions\/10524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallonezone.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallonezone.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallonezone.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}