Creed

Michael B. Jordan

Sylvestor Stallone

reviewed by Tom-Tom

 

Like any great boxing move, the hit came when we weren’t expecting it. It came from outside our field of vision from a writer/director we had never heard of. It landed on our breastbone igniting all sorts of emotions old and new. Now, filmmakers such as J.J. Abrams have succeeded in doing this with the Star Trek and Star Wars series but not as beautifully as this. Creed is its own movie and Adonis his own character. While there are plenty of salutes in the directions of the previous 6 films, Creed doesn’t require any homework to enjoy although fans of the series will certainly appreciate the nods.  

We begin in a juvenile corrections facility where young Adonis Johnson is fighting an older, taller, and stronger boy for insulting his dead mother. He is later visited by a very kind yet severe woman, who reveals herself to be Apollo Creed’s widow (the great Phylicia Rashad of The Cosby Show fame, the third actress to portray the role). Fast forwarding to the present, we see Michael B. Jordan as Adonis (Wallace from The Wire all grown up!) with a wonderfully muscular frame preparing for a boxing match in Mexico. Boxing, in this film is much like seeing Godzilla in the eponymous remake by Gareth Edwards, built up slowly with no jumping of the shark. Adonis, or Donnie as he prefers to be called, is unhappy in his high-paying albeit boring job. Seeing his toned muscles covered by a shirt and tie is almost hilarious.

Pawn Sacrifice

Toby Maguire

Liev Schreiber

 reviewed by Tom-Tom

Edward Zwick has made quite a few well researched, action packed, intelligent, and morally sound pictures from The Last Samurai to Blood Diamond. Here he levels the heft of his skills into the world of chess and the uncanny players therein. The American child prodigy Bobby Fischer, warts and all is performed in his various younger ages by a variety of talented child actors until being portrayed by Toby Maguire complete with tough New York accent. Fischer has to be the least likable role Maguire has taken on since the corrupt and abusive American soldier he played in The Good German. Chess is a game I’ve played for years without getting any better. I’m too impulsive to plan more than two or three moves ahead and I tend to concentrate too hard on my own strategy without accounting for that of my opponent’s which makes my own inevitable checkmate always a surprise. Bobby Fischer grows up never losing even once until he plays Carmine, the 25^th best chess player in New York and loses. The experience shocks him. He replays every move in his head and sees what has gone wrong. He demands another game. And so continues the young prodigy’s rise in prominence. He’s not subtle about his skills. He is a braggart and a loudmouth but has the ability to support his quips. Unfortunately he occasionally suffers from paranoia, hypersensitivity to sound, and a general aversion to people in general. When he is winning, he is all confidence and energy. When his increasingly insane conditions for playing aren’t met, he whines and holes himself up in an apartment or hotel room listening to the taped ravings of the 1970’s version of the Westboro Baptist Church which raves about the “dangers” of Jews, Communists, etc and espouses equally drastic measures to “right” the world again. He sends rambling conspiracy theory ridden letters to his sister warning her about “Jew-owned New York.” In tears, when speaking with Fischer’s manager, Fischer’s sister wails, “He keeps talking about dangerous Jewish people. We’re Jewish. He’s Jewish!” Kudos to the filmmakers for keeping this very damaging side of Fischer in the film.