When a film follows a path far different from its trailers, it can be a bait and switch shill, or a blessing. I can’t express how relieved I was to see that “Rocky 7,” or as it is officially titled, “Creed,” is not the film that the marketing department promised us. Unlike the brutal boxing melodrama that the previews pledged, this excellent sequel introduces new characters to the series while paying homage to the enduring appeal of its predecessors. 
 
 “Creed” follows the themes and gambits of classic fight films but this is no paint-by-numbers imitation. It unabashedly manipulates audiences without guile, jerks tears, piles on hardships and smooths out conflicts on its way to a wholesome, uplifting finale. It is cornball as all get out, formulaic and wonderfully, amazingly delicious. 
 
 The plot is basic. A journeyman boxer who grew up in cruddy state facilities wants to climb up the ranks to the top of the professional totem pole. On his way to the championship, he must learn how to protect his fragile soul. If you saw Jake Gyllenhaal being beaten to ground chuck in Antoine Fuqua’s grim “Southpaw” last summer, this may feel familiar. The prologue showing the hard-knocks life of brawling preteen Adonis Johnson Creed suggests he might have the menace of a Clubber Lang. Luckily, things quickly get better. The out-of-wedlock, essentially abandoned child of the late champ Apollo Creed, Adonis grows up shadow boxing to share his iconic father’s limelight. 
 
 Michael B. Jordan (as compelling here as he was in director Ryan Coogler’s previous film “Fruitvale Station”) infuses considerable depth to the essentially likable character. Adonis has a combative hair trigger, but he’s conflicted about fighting, at times reluctant to commit to the sport that killed his dad. 
 
 Who could be a better mentor than Rocky Balboa, the patron saint of Philadelphia? At 69, Sylvester Stallone returns to his archetypal role in a touching, deeply felt performance. He’s no longer the main character but definitely a main character. Well into retirement years, the Italian Stallion has the adorable, hangdog demeanor of an aged pet bulldog. Pro boxing is no country for old he-men, but Rocky is the ideal sidekick for Adonis in this mismatched buddy picture. Adonis convinces Rocky to guide him toward a championship bout and introduces him to everyone as his uncle. 
 
 Never a great actor, Stallone is a good and hugely appealing one, getting by more on an affable regular guy persona than talent. As he has in earlier films, Stallone treats Rocky as a sweet, lumbering sad sack. His shy smiles, sad eyes, shambling walk and soft diction imply the physical impact of aging. It’s a sly performance, pushing away the tough guy iconography of Rocky and revealing the man. 
 
 Creed ★★★½ out of 4 stars Rating: PG-13 for violence, language and some sensuality. 
 
 Stallone and Jordan make a great team in the inevitable training montages, a regimen of long runs and workouts in battered boxing gyms that capture the natural rhythm of fighting. That’s the world where Rocky touches the soul of his young protégé. Tessa Thompson (“Dear White People”) reaches just as deep as the nightclub singer who becomes Adonis’ girlfriend, her dumpling cheeks and big, sharp-focused eyes appraising him with a demand for 100 percent honesty at all times. 
 
 The story builds through a trio of key fight scenes, one three-minute barrage composed with no visible cuts as if the camera is realistically capturing a real brawl. Even in the bloodiest, there are no real villains here. As Rocky tells Adonis time and again, his toughest adversary is himself. The film is morally sound beginning to end. 
 
 Adonis’ title fight triggers giddy heights of cathartic glee, but that’s not the story’s big ending. The stirring finale comes as Stallone and Jordan slowly mount the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the sort of nostalgic image that leaves you undecided whether to cheer or get out your handkerchief. ||||| It's "Rocky IV 2" as "Creed" sequel revisits the 1985 Cold War classic 
 
 Sylvester Stallone and Michael B. Jordan in "Creed II." (Photo: Annapurna Pictures) 
 
 Like a fighter in the eighth round, "Creed II" is a bit wobbly on its feet, but it gets through the fight without throwing in the towel. 
 
 Ostensibly a sequel to "Rocky IV," "Creed II" settles old scores from that 1985 Cold War classic. But the formula it follows is familiar, and its in-ring storytelling lacks punch. 
 
 Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan) is heavyweight champ, and he's challenged to a fight by Viktor Drago (Florian Munteanu). Viktor is the son of Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren), the Russian beast who killed Creed's father in the ring in "Rocky IV," leading up to the elder Drago's marquee showdown with Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone). 
 
 So there's two generations of storylines at play, which gives "Creed II" plenty to dance with inside the ropes. Yet the buildup to the Creed-Drago showdown is rushed, and "Creed II" spends much of its time with Creed wrestling his inner turmoil and looking to find his fire again. 
 
 There's a meet-up between Ivan and Rocky inside Rocky's Philadelphia restaurant that simmers, but feels undercooked. The dramatic weight is shifted to the younger fighters, yet Viktor is all brute force and no depth, and is underdeveloped as a character. 
 
 "Creed II" is better on the home front, as Adonis and Bianca (the excellent Tessa Thompson) focus on starting a family. Their domestic strife is where the heart of the film lies. 
 
 Director Steven Caple Jr. ("The Land") gives everything a solemn feel — a pall even hangs over the film's marquee training montage — and "Creed II" misses the touch of Ryan Coogler, who directed 2015's "Creed" and coaxed an electrifying performance out of Jordan in this year's "Black Panther." "Creed II" goes the distance, but it lacks the knockout punch of its 2015 and 1985 predecessors. 
 
 agraham@detroitnews.com 
 
 @grahamorama 
 
 'Creed II' 
 
 GRADE: B- 
 
 Rated PG-13 for sports action violence, language, and a scene of sensuality 
 
 Running time: 128 minutes 
 
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– The son of former heavyweight champion Apollo Creed turns up in Philadelphia to be trained by his dead father's once-opponent Rocky Balboa in Creed—a movie cheered by critics, who give it a 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Here's what they're saying: "You'd expect a boxing movie to deliver the body blows, but what's surprising are the various tender caresses the movie delivers," writes Joe Dziemianowicz at the New York Daily News. Creed not only "packs a mighty punch," but it's "an exciting, amusing, and well-acted crowd-pleaser," he says. Sylvester Stallone will "knock your socks off," he adds. Sure, the David-versus-Goliath angle is "corny, but it still works." "Despite getting laid out in excruciatingly graphic detail, the kid somehow comes roaring back, not so much struggling to his feet as leaping. Which is exactly what this energetic, hugely entertaining film does for the four-decades-old franchise," writes Tom Russo at the Boston Globe. Michael B. Jordan and Stallone are each great on their own and "develop a terrific, relaxed chemistry," he says. The movie also "works on two levels, tending equally to nostalgists and a younger crowd." "This is the best Rocky film since the original" and "one of the year's warmest and most crowd-pleasing surprises," praises Lou Lumenick at the New York Post. A training montage shows writer-director Ryan Coogler "not only respects but totally gets what made the original underdog classic win the Best Picture Oscar in 1977." It's this that helps him deliver "a knockout punch." Stallone, meanwhile, delivers "one of his most careful and nuanced performances in years." "Creed follows the themes and gambits of classic fight films but this is no paint-by-numbers imitation," writes Colin Covert at the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "This excellent sequel introduces new characters to the series while paying homage to the enduring appeal of its predecessors," he says. "It unabashedly manipulates audiences ... on its way to a wholesome, uplifting finale. It is cornball as all get out, formulaic, and wonderfully, amazingly delicious."