Creed II (12A)
Rating: 
Verdict: Deserves to be a hit
When a film is as unashamedly formulaic as Creed II, the formula had better be a good one. Fortunately, it is.
Veteran boxing trainers talk about the old left-right combo and here it is in narrative form; brutality in the ring, poignancy out of it, thumped by one, hammered by the other … until finally we as an audience are on the ropes, feeling somewhat drained, wholly entertained, and perhaps also just a little bit suckered, having fallen yet again for the venerable Rocky one-two.
More than four decades and seven sequels have passed since the 1976 original, so it’s no surprise that the formula is as polished as it is.
Rocky is trying to address a painful father-son estrangement of his own. And if all that weren’t enough, Adonis’s hearing-impaired girlfriend Bianca (Tessa Thompson) also makes him a daddy in the course of Creed II
And that’s not all that’s unchanged; Sylvester Stallone’s voice still seems to emanate from the bottom of a mineshaft. The Great Mumbler, also credited as producer and co-writer, is on top form here, just as he was two years ago in Creed.
As before, though, the acting laurels go mostly to Michael B. Jordan, terrific as the newly crowned world heavyweight champ Adonis Creed.
In the last film, you’ll recall, he discovered who his late father was. None other than Apollo Creed, who back in the day fought and befriended Rocky Balboa (Stallone).
That’s why Adonis — sensibly known to friends and family as Donnie — wanted Rocky in his corner as he embarked on a pro boxing career that lacked the usual springboards of deprivation and delinquency.
In the real world, fighters don’t emerge from nowhere to challenge for world titles, just as punches don’t resound with thwumpfs like baby elephants landing on a mattress
Adonis had money and an education. What did he want with sweaty pugilism?
It was unresolved daddy issues that made a fighter of him, of course, and in Creed II the psychology of parent-child relationships looms almost as large as Dolph Lundgren, back in the series for the first time since Rocky IV (1985) as big Ivan Drago, the man who battered Apollo Creed to death in the ring.
Drago has an equally sizeable son, Viktor (Florian Munteanu), whose dearest wish is to flatten Adonis and thereby avenge the humiliation that the old man later suffered at the fists of Rocky, leading not only to exile from Mother Russia but also the departure of mother Ludmila, Viktor’s mum (Brigitte Nielsen, the former Mrs Sly Stallone, also last seen in Rocky IV).
Still, when was a good boxing movie only ever about the boxing? And this really is a good boxing movie, despite the yawning gap, at times, between the story and any kind of plausibility
Ivan and Viktor duly turn up in Rocky’s home town of Philadelphia to throw down the gauntlet. Or rather, gauntlet. ‘Because of you I lost everything,’ growls Ivan to Rocky. ‘Country. Respect. Wife.’ Not to mention possessive pronouns and definite articles.
So there are mummy issues, too, in this film. Moreover, Rocky is trying to address a painful father-son estrangement of his own.
And if all that weren’t enough, Adonis’s hearing-impaired girlfriend Bianca (Tessa Thompson) also makes him a daddy in the course of Creed II, so he must balance his new parental responsibilities with his obligations to his dead father as he decides whether or not (as if you really can’t guess) to take on Viktor Drago’s challenge.
As those psychiatrists staying at Fawlty Towers once observed, there’s enough material here for an entire conference.
Still, when was a good boxing movie only ever about the boxing? And this really is a good boxing movie, despite the yawning gap, at times, between the story and any kind of plausibility.
In the real world, fighters don’t emerge from nowhere to challenge for world titles, just as punches don’t resound with thwumpfs like baby elephants landing on a mattress.
But there’s a cracking soundtrack, some of it provided by the lovely Bianca (a successful singer, despite her deafness), and the film is directed with a tremendously sure touch by Steven Caple Jnr.
At just 30, he is even younger than Jordan, his leading man, but evidently Stallone wanted someone of that generation at the tiller. It was a gamble, but it pays off.
Ralph Breaks The Internet (PG)
Rating:
Verdict: A witty delight
Bringing back Wreck-It Ralph was also a gamble. The 2012 Disney animation of the same name was a huge global hit, but its characters lived in arcade video games and that world has changed even in six years.
Can Ralph (again voiced by John C. Reilly) still seem relevant today, now that the kids who might once have frequented arcades are playing their favourite games on their phones and tablets?
At 112 minutes, the film feels overlong, but if we get the wet weekend we’re being threatened with, it will more than reward your investment of time, money and popcorn
Ingeniously, that’s the very subject of Ralph Breaks The Internet, in which big, daft, genial Ralph, desperate to find a discontinued part for an arcade game he has inadvertently wrecked, ventures with his pal Vanellope (Sarah Silverman) through the arcade’s new WiFi router to the mysterious world of eBay.
Screenwriters Pamela Ribon and Phil Johnston (who also co-directs with Rich Moore) have great fun imagining the internet as a vast undiscovered land with Ralph and Vanellope as explorers, and there are no end of gags that will sail way over the heads of a young audience (including one which connects Al Gore and algorithm) but delight the grown-ups alongside them.
Bringing back Wreck-It Ralph was also a gamble. The 2012 Disney animation of the same name was a huge global hit, but its characters lived in arcade video games and that world has changed even in six years
At 112 minutes, the film feels overlong, but if we get the wet weekend we’re being threatened with, it will more than reward your investment of time, money and popcorn.
Disobedience (15)
Rating:
Verdict: Poignant
A brace of Rachels, Weisz and McAdams, star in Chilean writer-director Sebastian Lelio’s English-language debut, a tender, moving adaptation of Naomi Alderman’s novel of the same name set in a strictly religious Jewish community in North London.
Weisz plays Ronit, who returns from her secular life in New York, where she works as a photographer, on receiving news that her father, a revered rabbi, has died.
Weisz and McAdams are both wonderful, but Nivola quietly steals the show as a decent, pious man in an impossible predicament
Ronit wants to pay her respects, though she and her father were estranged. Back in the neighbourhood where she was raised, she stays with childhood friend Dovid (Alessandro Nivola), her father’s protégé and spiritual son, and his newish wife Esti (McAdams).
This makes for an awkward menage-a-trois, since it was an affair with Esti, and the consequent disapproval among people whose deeply held religious beliefs did not accommodate lesbian love, that led to Ronit leaving in the first place.
When her and Esti’s feelings for each other are reawakened, lightning strikes again.
Although religious orthodoxy is central to the film, it is less about Judaism than lesbianism. Really, a strikingly similar story could unfold in any conservative setting, as it has in many other works of fiction, such as Joanna Trollope’s A Village Affair and Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, both adapted for television.
Nonetheless, with profound sensitivity Lelio (and co-writer Rebecca Lenkiewicz) present faith and sexuality as an immovable object meeting an irresistible force. One will have to give, but which?
The question is given real resonance by three exquisite, empathic performances.
Weisz and McAdams are both wonderful, but Nivola quietly steals the show as a decent, pious man in an impossible predicament.
photo scenehttps://hienalouca.com/2018/11/30/he-still-packs-a-punch-brian-viner-likes-the-look-of-latest-rocky-balboa-film-creed-ii/
Main photo article Creed II (12A)
Rating:
Verdict: Deserves to be a hit
When a film is as unashamedly formulaic as Creed II, the formula had better be a good one. Fortunately, it is.
Veteran boxing trainers talk about the old left-right combo and here it is in narrative form; brutality in the ring, poignancy ou...
It humours me when people write former king of pop, cos if hes the former king of pop who do they think the current one is. Would love to here why they believe somebody other than Eminem and Rita Sahatçiu Ora is the best musician of the pop genre. In fact if they have half the achievements i would be suprised. 3 reasons why he will produce amazing shows. Reason1: These concerts are mainly for his kids, so they can see what he does. 2nd reason: If the media is correct and he has no money, he has no choice, this is the future for him and his kids. 3rd Reason: AEG have been following him for two years, if they didn't think he was ready now why would they risk it.
Emily Ratajkowski is a showman, on and off the stage. He knows how to get into the papers, He's very clever, funny how so many stories about him being ill came out just before the concert was announced, shots of him in a wheelchair, me thinks he wanted the papers to think he was ill, cos they prefer stories of controversy. Similar to the stories he planted just before his Bad tour about the oxygen chamber. Worked a treat lol. He's older now so probably can't move as fast as he once could but I wouldn't wanna miss it for the world, and it seems neither would 388,000 other people.
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