dvd of the week
Ryan Coogler’s Rocky sequel-cum-reboot turns Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) into the trainer and Apollo Creed’s illegitimate son Donny (Michael P. Jordan) into the boxer with something to prove. The plot is a by-the-numbers boxing movie, but Stallone’s seventh turn as Rocky Balboa is arguably his best, and Michael P. Jordan is again sterling, this time as the young man with anger management problems and a chip on his shoulder. Coogler pulls out these phenomenal performances and repurposes the Rocky tropes perfectly, using the Philadelphia landscape, fight choreography and the iconic music in surprising and thrilling ways. Except for Stallone’s performance, the film was frustratingly snubbed by the Oscars, making it one of the reasons #OscarsSoWhite was created.
