Creed iii

Creed III, for better or for worse, is the entry that officially cuts the apron strings in regards to the Rocky franchise. The decision’s underlying logic was sound. The original Creed rose unexpectedly from the dying embers of a series that managed to pull off the minor triumph of Rocky Balboa back in 2006, but otherwise appeared to have well and truly run its course. The Ryan Coogler-directed film was, in a lot of ways, a miracle of tone and execution… casting Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) in the role of trainer and mentor to up-and-coming fighter Adonis (Michael B. Jordan), the illegitimate son of his onetime nemesis-turned-BFF Apollo Creed. It’s a great movie, though its follow-up Creed II - as functional and entertaining a sequel as it is - had a much stickier time balancing the two characters. At the end of the film, Rocky remarked “It’s your time now,” and it genuinely felt as if the torch had been passed. Sly and his most iconic creation had earned a well-deserved rest.

Creed III sees Adonis on top of the world, having retired from boxing as the undisputed heavyweight champion and segueing into a successful career as a promoter (insert your own George Washington Duke joke here). One of the more startling aspects of the Rocky series is that there hasn’t actually been a truly great antagonist since Dolph Lundgren’s Soviet superfighter Ivan Drago in Rocky IV - Rocky Balboa’s Mason “The Line” Dixon and Creed’s Pretty Ricky Conlan were simply a means to an end plot-wise, while Creed II’s Viktor Drago was barely even a character at all (your mileage re: Rocky V’s Tommy Gunn may vary, but the climactic fight was a letdown). The moment Jonathan Majors sets foot on-screen, there’s a different energy - his presence is undeniable. He plays “Diamond” Damian Anderson, once a fighter of incredible promise who was both a friend and big brother to Adonis from their days in a group home, but lost everything when he landed in prison. Adonis invites Damian to train in his gym and is clearly blinded by his desire to do right by him for reasons that aren’t immediately clear - even as everyone around him, including trainer Little Duke (Wood Harris) and wife Bianca (the ever-terrific Tessa Thompson), can see that Damian spent two decades behind bars turning himself into a powder keg of anger and hate. He and Adonis are clearly headed for a reckoning that Adonis can’t quite bring himself to acknowledge.

Creed III, by every measure, should be an absolute knockout… so why on earth isn’t this movie better than it actually is? It doesn’t help that our feelings towards Damian remain ambivalent, because, frankly, the film itself is ambivalent towards him - it can’t seem to decide whether he’s a true villain, or a tragic figure redeemable in some form… and such vacillation proves costly. Some have likened the plot to Cape Fear, and it’s a thrilling notion… but in truth, that’s precisely what’s missing - a sense of genuine menace, a feeling that Adonis is in uncharted territory because he’s facing an opponent who’ll cross any line to get what he wants. Damian should be scary - and in Majors, we have an actor more than equipped to deliver… but the movie blinks; it remains distressingly gun-shy.

There’s a larger issue here, however… one that Creed managed to elegantly sidestep like a fleet-of-foot fighter, but which haunted Creed II, and now Creed III as well. The brilliance of the Rocky sequels - and why their popularity continues to endure - is that Stallone was essentially making larger-than-life Saturday morning cartoons… but cartoons whose sense of the dramatic were as gloriously juiced as Rocky’s absurdly jacked physique (as a writer, Stallone has never gotten enough credit for his grasp of structural craft). The Creed films can’t help but crib from what came before (Creed III is mostly an amalgam of Rocky II & III), but with their more grounded approach, the key moments are less impactful - less heightened, less visceral - and too often register as pale facsimiles. This is not a franchise that traffics effectively in nuance - it’s designed to paint in big, bold, splashy colors (compare Adonis’s functional but largely interchangeable training montages to the juxtaposition between Rocky’s back-to-basics Siberian approach and Drago’s state-of-the-art lab regimen in part IV). The motivation for Adonis even agreeing to the climactic title bout is strangely lacking in narrative heat.   ​

Star Michael B. Jordan - as part, perhaps, of the Creed franchise’s newly asserted independence - elected to seize the directing reins himself, and he proves quite capable behind the camera. The final fight - set in Dodger Stadium - is staged with great technical proficiency (particularly in IMAX, which captures every square inch of Adonis and Damian’s canvas of sweat-speckled musculature)… but there’s also no particular rhythm or story or strategy to what’s unfolding on-screen (what are Damian’s perceived weaknesses and how has Adonis retooled himself as a fighter coming out of retirement are questions one might very well ask… and receive no particular answer to). The end result inspires curiously - and disappointingly - muted emotions. Adonis is ironically showcased in the ubiquitous promo for AMC theaters, as Nicole Kidman waxes philosophic about how “Our heroes feel like the best part of us… and stories feel perfect and powerful.” That’s a fitting description of the Rocky films. I wish it were a little more applicable to the Creed sequels.