Sylvester Stallone and Michael B. Jordan (Warner Bros. Pictures)

With the almost autumnal 2006 film Rocky Balboa, you’d think Sylvester Stallone’s signature franchise would have run its course. But Rocky is like an old family friend, and like family, it grows. With Creed, the Italian stallion auteur hands over the reins to writer-director Ryan Coogler (Fruitvale Station) for a crowd-pleaser that more than earns its place in this beloved series.

Widely celebrated but often dismissed, the Rocky films deliver old-fashioned entertainment to what might seem a niche audience hungry to witness brutal violence. But from the 1949 noir classic The Set-Up to the generally reviled Rocky V (which I liked), boxing movies are more often than not also about internal wounds. Sure, these movies fuel a blood lust rooting for the underdog, but movie after movie, they also make grown men cry.

Over the course of six films that spanned three decades, Stallone charted the rise and fall of an American hero and chump. Writing all six films and directing four of them, he took his beloved Philadelphia fighter through gritty relationships and cartoonish spectacles and back again, his plot lines frequently reflecting his own personal turmoil (the broken family of Rocky V coming at the hands of the actor leaving his family for Brigitte Nielsen after Rocky IV). As the years passed, Rocky’s powerful body became a burden, as all our bodies are. And even if the Rocky films are formulaic, as he returned to Philadelphia, the details of place and character changed a little bit more as time passed and Rocky, and Stallone, got older.

Coogler’s script honors Stallone’s characters and concerns, from the passage of time to the visceral way that his character’s emotions seep into them—and not just inside the ring.

We meet Adonis Johnson as an untethered child who’s lived his short life in and out of juvenile detention. His father, Apollo Creed, died in the ring; his mother, a woman Apollo was having an affair with, died not long after; one day Mary Anne (Phylicia Rashad), Apollo’s widow, comes to take the young man in. Naturally he grows up to be a boxer (Michael B. Jordan). We see him win a match in Tijuana; twelve hours later, we see him back at his day gig: at an investment firm.

Adonis lives a privileged life in the mansion that his father’s winnings bought, but he wants to make a name for himself, and goes to Philadelphia to talk Rocky Balboa (Stallone) into training him—and in some way, replacing his absent father.

You can see where this is all going, the smell of impending triumph more potent than buttered popcorn. As predictable as the final outcome may be, like all the Rocky movies, this will be a volatile ride.

Michael B. Jordan and Tessa Thompson (Warner Bros. Pictures)

The Rocky movies featured an iconic love story in Rocky and Adrian (Talia Shire), and the weak spot in Creed is the romance between Donnie (as he calls himself to disguise his storied heritage) and Philly musician Bianca (Tessa Thompson). Still, the way they meet is wonderful, not just cute but deep.

On the first night in his cheap Philadelphia apartment, Donnie is trying to sleep so he can get up early to work out. His rest is disturbed by the thudding of music downstairs. This turns out to be Bianca, whose music inevitably seeps through him before he even sees her. Bianca has a fatalistic touch that seems right out of Stallone’s playbook: she wears hearing aids—not unlike series favorite Mickey (Burgess Meredith). When Donnie asks her about them, she tells him it’s a degenerative condition. This young musician will eventually go deaf, and while she’s learning sign language to prepare for her fate, she’s doing what she loves as long as her body can handle it.

Adonis is a worthy successor to Rocky, but anyone who has their emotions invested in the series’ characters will come to see Stallone, the only one left from the original movies. This is a significant supporting role for Stallone, and it’s a heartbreaking performance. If you’ve never seen a Rocky movie, you may laugh at the idea that Stallone is a good actor, but throughout this series, his acting chops have developed (and regressed) from the vulnerable young underdog to the established celebrity, and finally the vulnerable aging hero. Coogler’s writing and direction brings out the best in Stallone, and gives him tear-jerking scenes that will look great on an Oscar clip reel. Still, moving like a good boxer, the script isn’t just a series of emotional uppercuts.

Take one touching detail. In Rocky Balboa, the retired fighter keeps a wooden folding chair wedged in a tree near his wife Adrian’s grave. Creed brings Rocky back to the cemetery, sitting in the same chair, talking to Adrian and her brother Paulie (Burt Young), now buried next to her. When Rocky puts the chair back in the tree, you see that the wood has grown old and weathered. Just like Rocky.

I’m not going to convince anyone who doesn’t care about the Rocky movies that this is worth seeing. But for those of you who grew up on these movies, think of it as revisiting an old friend who may not be around much longer. And meeting a new friend with a bright future.

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Creed
Written and directed by Ryan Coogler and Aaron Covington
With Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson
Rated PG-13 for violence, language and some sensuality
133 minutes
Opens today at a multiplex near you.