Adonis Creed

Adonis Creed, formerly Adonis Johnson, is the main protagonist and title character from the Rocky spin-off and sequel Creed. Adonis is the illegitimate son of Apollo Creed; the result of an affair by the former heavyweight champion and a woman with the surname Johnson. Adonis spends the first several years of his life in foster care and juvenile hall, until he is subsequently adopted by Mary Anne Creed, Apollo's widow. He lives a life of luxury and maintains a stable white collar job, only to abandon it to pursue a lifelong dream of becoming a professional boxer. He goes to Philadelphia and convinces his late father's friend Rocky Balboa to train and mentor him.^[7]

Story

In 1998, Adonis "Donnie" Johnson is shown in a juvenile hall detention center fighting with other children. He is separated and taken back to his cell. Mary Anne Creed (Phylicia Rashad), Apollo's widow, meets with Adonis and adopts him; informing him that he is Apollo Creed's son (sired from an extramarital affair). In the present day, Adonis (using his biological mother's last name Johnson) is a wealthy young college graduate working at a securities firm. However, on weekends, he sneaks out to Tijuana to fight professional boxing matches against unheralded opponents, and maintains an undefeated 15-0 record. Soon Adonis quits his job to pursue his dream of becoming a boxer. Mary Anne vehemently objects, remembering how her husband was killed in the ring 30 years earlier (Rocky IV) and how he suffered after every fight before then. He finds it hard to get anyone in Los Angeles to train him due to his father's death in the ring, particularly after he suffers an embarrassing loss in a sparring match to light heavyweight contender Danny "Stuntman" Wheeler (Andre Ward). Undaunted, Adonis decides to travel to Philadelphia in hopes of seeking out his father's best friend and former rival, Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone).

Once in Philadelphia, Adonis meets Rocky and tries to get the elder boxer to be his trainer. Having given up boxing, and believing Apollo wouldn't want his son being a fighter, Rocky refuses. However, Adonis' persistence eventually wins Rocky over. He forms a strong bond with Rocky and regards him as an uncle, even going so far as to call him "Unc" and introduce him to people as such. Meanwhile, Adonis forms a relationship with his downstairs neighbor, Bianca (Tessa Thompson), a singer-songwriter with progressive hearing loss. Donnie gets a match with Leo "The Lion" Sporino (Gabriel Rosado), the son of a trainer who originally wanted Rocky to coach his son. He moves in with Rocky to train for the fight. Rocky takes Donnie—now known as "Hollywood Donnie"—to the Front Street Gym to prepare with the help of several of Rocky's longtime friends, where Adonis markedly improves his hand speed, stamina, and defense. Prior to the fight, Sporino's father learns that Adonis is in fact Apollo Creed's son. After Adonis wins the fight in a 2nd round TKO, Sporino's father alerts the media of Adonis' parentage. Meanwhile, World light heavyweight champion "Pretty" Ricky Conlan (Tony Bellew), due to go to prison on gun charges which will effectively end his career, is gearing up for his final fight against Danny "Stuntman" Wheeler. After Conlan breaks Wheeler's jaw at the weigh-in for their title fight, Conlan's manager Tommy Holiday (Graham McTavish) decides that the best way to end his career would be against the son of Apollo Creed. Conlan is against it, but reluctantly agrees. Holiday meets with Rocky and Adonis, demanding that he use the name Creed if he wants a shot at the light heavyweight title. Adonis is reluctant due to his desire to forge his own legacy. He only consents after Bianca persuades him to use Apollo's surname.

During one intense night of training, Rocky becomes sick and is taken to the hospital. He is diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin lymphoma, but refuses to undergo chemotherapy, remembering that it didn't save his wife Adrian. Adonis discovers pamphlets about the disease in Rocky's coat packet after another late night training session, where Rocky tells Adonis that they are not family and that he has nothing to live for now that Paulie and Adrian have died, and his son has moved away to Vancouver. Feeling angry and dejected, Adonis gets into a fight with a rapper before one of Bianca's shows, and is thrown in jail. When Rocky comes to bail him out, he tells off the former heavyweight champion, accusing him of getting Apollo killed in the ring.

Later, Adonis goes to Bianca's to apologize and explain the situation but she takes out her hearing aids and ignores him. He then meets up with Rocky, explaining that he's going to use the name Creed and fight against Conlan, but only if Rocky gets treatment to fight his illness. While Rocky is sick, he still trains Adonis in the hospital room and back in his house.

The fight takes place in Conlan's hometown of Liverpool, England, where Adonis is antagonized by Conlan at the press conference. Before the fight, Bianca comes to their hotel at Rocky's behest, and the two lovers reconcile. Mary Anne sends Adonis his father's iconic American flag boxing shorts; the back of the shorts bearing the name Johnson and the front bearing the name Creed. After some early struggles, Adonis shocks the world by giving Conlan all he can handle. He ultimately goes the distance, even managing to knock Conlan down for the first time in his career as Bianca and the once-antagonistic crowd begin to cheer him on. Although he loses by split decision, Adonis gains the respect and admiration of Conlan and everyone watching.

Back in Philadelphia, Adonis and a recovering Rocky go up the Rocky Steps, representing a victory for both Rocky and Adonis in fighting their respective battles.

Casting and creation

Michael B Jordan and Ryan Coogler had previously worked on Fruitvale Station together in 2013. Coogler contacted Jordan and presented him with the role of Apollo Creed's son. Jordan didn't use a body double in his scenes. Of his experience, Jordan stated, "I didn't get knocked out or anything like that, but yeah there were definitely some slips, some jabs, some body punches."^[8] Jordan had a strict diet in preparation for the role:"I stripped down my diet completely. Grilled chicken, brown rice, broccoli and a lot of water. I worked out two to two three times a day, six days a week. And ... if you do that consistently for about 10 months your body will change."^[9] Ryan Coogler stated that "That was [Jordan] taking real punches" and became "routinely bloodied, bruised and dizzy" from his fight scenes with Andre Ward, Gabriel Rosado, and Tony Bellew, all of whom are professional boxers.^[10] Gabriel Rosado stated of Jordan's boxing skills, "Michael can throw down man. If you sleep on him in the street he might put you to sleep."^[11]

Ryan Coogler was inspired to make Creed from his experiences with his own father: "He used to play Rocky before I had football games to pump me up, and he would get really emotional watching the movies. He used to watch Rocky II with his mom while she was sick and dying of cancer. She passed away when he was 18 years old. And so when he got sick he was losing his strength because he had a muscular condition. He was having trouble getting around, having trouble carrying stuff. I started thinking about this idea of my dad’s mortality. For me he was kind of like this mythical figure, my father, similar to what Rocky was for him. Going through it inspired me to make a film that told a story about his hero going through something similar to kind of motivate him and cheer him up. That’s how I came up with the idea for this movie."^[12] Although Sylvester Stallone was initially reluctant to help out with the film,^[13] he changed his mind upon meeting with Coogler and Jordan. In discussing Stallone's advice to him, Jordan said that he "taught me how to throw punches and hit me in my chest a couple times."^[14]

Personality

Adonis is torn between trying to preserve his father's legacy and build his own. A.O. Scott of The New York Times wrote that, "Adonis is a complex character with a complex fate. He is at once a rich kid and a street kid, the proud carrier of an illustrious heritage and an invisible man. His relationship with Rocky is complicated, too. The older fighter is a mentor and a father figure, to be sure, but he also needs someone to take care of him, especially when illness adds a melodramatic twist to the plot.^[15] Adonis has been described as "arrogant",.^[16][17][18] Although Adonis' circumstances change after he is adopted by Mary Anne Creed, his late father's widow, he retains his fiery personality. Short-tempered and impulsive, but good-natured, it is Adonis' tenacity that convinces Rocky to train him.^[19] Michael O' Sullivan of The Washington Post analyzes that Adonis' "struggles with his temper" are "a coping mechanism that helps him deal with the fear of not living up to the name Creed." ^[20] Jordan states of Adonis, "My character is living in the shadow of his dad, who is arguably the greatest fighter that ever lived, and he really has to embrace that to move forward. I could understand wanting to have your own legacy and trying to find your own lane".^[21] Adonis' hubris initially causes him to refuse to embrace the name Creed, instead using his mother's surname Johnson. Only with his girlfriend Bianca's encouragement does Adonis eventually come to accept the name.^[22] When Adonis meets Rocky and reveals to him that he is Apollo's son and that he wants the elder former boxer to train him, Rocky questions, "Why would you pick a fighter's life when you don't need to?" He immediately notes that Adonis is well-educated and comes from a wealthy background, which contrasts Rocky's own upbringing. However, Rocky sees in Adonis the drive and determination in himself and Apollo when he was younger, and concedes in training him.^[23] After Rocky is diagnosed with non-hodgkins lymphona, it is Adonis who motivates him and teaches him to fight again: "Adonis is there to push [Rocky] the same way Rocky pushes him in the gym and in the ring."^[24][25] Adonis pays tribute to Rocky, his father, and his country by wearing the classic American flag shorts in his debut professional match that Apollo and Balboa sported in their bouts against Ivan Drago.^[26] However, Adonis' shorts have the name Johnson on the back and Creed on the front, symbolizing that he can both preserve his father's legacy and still make his own.

Fighting style

Although Apollo Creed's boxing style was based on Muhammad Ali's, Adonis uses a different style. Adonis has an orthodox stance like his father, yet Michael B. Jordan and Ryan Coogler wanted Adonis' style to be "unorthodox". They modeled Adonis' style on Timothy Bradley, a real life boxer from California.^[27] Jordan described Bradley's style as "pretty wild" and "kind of a brawler". He added that since Adonis "taught himself to box", his style would be rough and untamed. Being trained by Rocky, Adonis learns to absorb a lot of punishment and has a strong chin, but he is generally much faster than Rocky and more prone to dodge punches. Unlike Bradley, who is a welterweight, or Rocky, a heavyweight, Adonis is a light heavyweight boxer.

Reception

The character of Adonis and Jordan's portrayal of the character have received critical acclaim. Aisha Harris of Slate stated, "I feared signing on to Creed might derail Coogler’s and Jordan’s careers. Instead, this revitalizing crowd-pleaser solidifies my belief that these two have the potential to create really great art."^[28] "In a performance that should help his fans forget Fantastic Four, Jordan is flat-out terrific", said reviewer Calvin Wilson.^[29] A.O. Scott of The New York Times noted that "Mr. Jordan’s limitations...have yet to be discovered. With every role, he seems to delight in the unfolding of his talent, and to pass his excitement along to the audience."^[30] David Sims of The Atlantic said, "Coogler and Jordan...create a protagonist of color who avoids the stereotypes of many of Hollywood’s black heroes while still being celebrated as one. Adonis is an easy hero for everyone to cheer for, but he’s not thinly painted. Scenes where he runs through Philadelphia followed by cheering kids on bikes are especially memorable—they celebrate the film’s myth-making without putting the hero on an unreachable pedestal."^[31] Reviewers praised Adonis' relationship with Bianca; Peter Travers of Rolling Stone stated that, "the romance Donny has with his own Adrian, R&B singer Bianca (a terrific Tessa Thompson), feels sexually frisky and freshly conceived."^[32] Stephanie Zacharek of Time says, "Jordan’s face, in particular, is the kind you feel protective of. He’s charismatic in a totally carefree way—you never catch him trying too hard, and his scenes with Thompson have a lovely, bantering lyricism."^[33]

References

\