Watch Online Creed (2015) - MovieTimeUs

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Synopsis:

Adonis Johnson Creed (Michael B. Jordan), the son of former heavyweight champion Apollo Creed, attempts to follow in his father's footsteps and become a boxing legend in his own right. Apollo died in the ring in the 1980s at the hand of Russian pugilist Ivan Drago, forcing Adonis to grow up without his dad in his life. The young man travels to Philadelphia to find his late father's nemesis-turned-best friend, Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone), in order to recruit him as a trainer. Balboa soon takes the young Creed under his wing and helps him get in shape for a shot at the title. Ryan Coogler directs this spin-off of the hugely successful Rocky franchise.

Review:

Adonis Johnson (Michael B. Jordan) never knew his biological father, famed boxer Apollo Creed, who died in the ring before his birth. He's the illegitimate child of the former heavyweight champ, and spent his early life in juvenile detention and floating between group homes in Los Angeles, until Apollo's widow Mary Anne (Phylicia Rashad) tracked him down and adopted him. Flash-forward to 2015: Adonis fights (and dominates) in unlicensed matches in Tijuana at night, then returns to a promising office job in L.A. the following morning. He resents his father's legacy and is desperate to make his own name in the ring, but wants to do so without relying on the fanfare of his bloodline.

Against the wishes of his adoptive mother, Adonis quits his job and heads to Philadelphia, where he seeks out the only man who stood toe-to-toe with his father in his prime: Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone). Adonis is a self-taught boxer with a raw style, and he asks Rocky to train him to become a serious contender. The aging fighter begrudgingly accepts after much pestering, and Balboa takes young Adonis under his wing. The public quickly become aware of Adonis' heritage, and after knocking out a celebrated young fighter, he's catapulted into the spotlight and arranged to face reigning champ "Pretty" Ricky Conlan (Anthony Bellew). Meanwhile, Rocky's health suffers as the title fight nears, testing the fortitude of both men as the seventh installment of the Rocky franchise reaches its final act.

The 28-year-old Jordan breathes remarkable life into the title role, balancing the cocksure, boastful attitude of his character's late father with his own sense of exuberance and loyalty. In addition, his scenes with love interest Bianca (Tessa Thompson) are tender and candid. Jordan escaped the tire fire that was The Fantastic Four relatively unscathed, and here he reminds us that he's a tremendous talent.

Likewise, Stallone is a treasure as the aging Balboa, who's been beaten down physically and mentally from a hard life. As his health deteriorates over the course of the film, it's shocking to see him look so withered while steadfastly training the young Adonis. Sly is able to distill the most vulnerable and amiable elements of Balboa, which have persisted throughout the franchise, into an earnest, emotional performance.

Sure, there are rehashed plot points from earlier Rocky flicks; the underdog-boxer tale only has a finite number of routes it can take. But director Ryan Coogler (who previously teamed with Jordan for 2013's fantastic Fruitvale Station) forgoes scenes of drinking raw eggs and meat-locker boxing, instead helming the movie like any true prodigy would -- by making Creed distinctly his own. He taps into the heart of Philadelphia the same way Stallone and John G. Avildsen did in 1976, even if Rocky's home looks vastly different nearly 40 years later. Coogler and cinematographer Maryse Alberti use the gritty cityscape as a backdrop for Adonis' transformation: While the young man grew up fighting all the time in group homes, he was able to live a life of luxury after Mary Anne found him. Thus, his move to Philadelphia signals a shift in his character, and the city represents the type of the fighter he wants to become under Balboa's tutelage. And just as previous Rocky films focused on Italian neighborhoods in the blue-collar city, Coogler takes Creed into historically African-American pockets of Philadelphia, where Meek Mill blares on gym stereos and wheelie-popping dirt bikes are heard outside. Despite hailing from Oakland, CA, Coogler (who also co-wrote Creed with Aaron Covington) manages to bring this milieu to life without it feeling forced or disingenuous.

Creed is as artfully crafted as any pugilist flick in recent memory. Adonis' fight scenes are choreographed with both technical fluidity and a palpable intensity: Heads don't dramatically snap back like they did when the Italian Stallion fought Drago in Rocky IV -- instead, the blows land with a realistic force. With all the potential pitfalls that could have stunted Creed before its opening bell rang, it's no minor achievement that the pieces come together into such a bold, funny, and satisfying whole. Big-budget, studio-produced franchise films don't get any better than this.

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Watch Online Southpaw (2015) - MovieTimeUs

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Synopsis :

Jake Gyllenhaal stars as troubled boxer Billy Hope in this high-stakes drama from director Antoine Fuqua and Sons of Anarachy creator Kurt Sutter. At the height of his fame and success, Hope is convinced by his loving wife Maureen (Rachel McAdams) to retire from the sport in order to spend more time with the couple's daughter Leila (Oona Laurence). On the night of his retirement announcement, a rival boxer calls out Hope and an altercation breaks out, killing Maureen. Hope's self-destructive behavior worsens, and Leila is taken away by child services. In order to redeem his life and get his daughter back, Hope must return to boxing under the tutelage of hardened trainer Titus "Tick" Willis (Forest Whitaker).

Review :

Screenwriters can put words in a character's mouth, but it takes aconscientious actor to spin what's on the page into a person's truth. That's exactly what Rachel McAdams does in the first few minutes of Southpaw, playing a woman named Maureen who is sitting ringside at a boxing match while her fearsome, tattooed husband, Billy Hope (Jake Gyllenhaal), paces the mat like an animal and pounds his way through a particularly gory round. He's got a sparrow in flight inked on his neck, and in the cutaways, we can discreetly see that she has the same tattoo, as well as a word inked around her finger where a wedding ring should be. There's no tight zoom and freeze frame revealing exactly what that word is -- in fact, the audience never finds out. It's a private communication between husband and wife, something that speaks to their bond as clearly Maureen texting "Daddy won" to their daughter at home, or the way she rushes to Billy when it's over, unafraid to get his blood on her face during a post-match kiss.

Billy loves his wife, and we can see why: She's loyal, tough, shrewd, loving, and beautiful. She is his rock, and if he weren't equally devoted to her, whisperers would say she's too good for his mumbly, thuggish self. That's why Billy can ignore the taunts of an upstart palooka (Miguel Gomez) looking to goad him into a fight -- until one night, when the trash talk after a charity gala includes a slur against Maureen. That does it: Billy throws a punch, a fight breaks out, and a shot is fired. Maureen the courageous and true dies in her husband's arms.

Southpaw isn't a movie about simpleminded revenge, about how "finding the man who killed my wife" will put everything right. That's not how it works in life. Terrible things happen that can't be undone and then we're thrust back into our lives, forced to make it all up on the spot as time marches on. Things soon get worse for Billy. He loses his house. He gets a DUI. He blows a multifight deal engineered by an avaricious manager (50 Cent). He loses custody of his daughter. The downward spiral continues until he meets Tick (Forest Whitaker), an ex-boxer now running a small gym for troubled kids. Tick refuses to train professionals, but he offers some free advice: When you lack control over your own anger, anyone can yank your reins.

It's impossible to watch Southpaw without reflecting on how different Billy Hope is from Gyllenhaal's previous role, the predatory weirdo Louis Bloom from Nightcrawler. Louis was glib where Billy is inarticulate, sociopathic where Billy is loving, gaunt and sickly compared to Billy's 200 pounds of angry, determined muscle. With this role, Gyllenhaal proves he's now entered that rare class of actors (which include, among others, Christian Bale) who are such chameleons that they seem able to transform into any character. It's extraordinary work, but it's still not the best performance in a movie that also contains bravura turns from Whitaker and newcomer Oona Laurence as Billy's daughter. Instead, that honor goes to Rachel McAdams, whose Maureen appears in only the first quarter of the film, but whose goodness and tragedy color the rest of the story.

Written by Kurt Sutter (Sons of Anarchy) and directed by Antoine Fuqua (Training Day), Southpaw has some stiff competition in the boxing-film subgenre: Rocky, Raging Bull, Million Dollar Baby, The Fighter, Cinderella Man, Requiem for a Heavyweight (and coming in the near future are Bleed for This, Creed, and Hands of Stone). But it succeeds not only as an exhilarating sports movie with some top-notch fights (Fuqua builds on the visual grammar of televised boxing to create a visceral experience), but as a character portrait in every sense of the word "character." We might not be able to read the tattoo on Maureen's finger, but it's obvious that Billy's forearms are inked with the words "Father" and "Fighter"; when he loses both of those core parts of his identity, he redeems himself by taking on the true mantle of manhood. Southpaw wins on much more than a judge's decision.

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