Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Michael B. Jordan
Starring: Michael B. Jordan, Jonathan Majors, Tessa Thompson, Wood Harris, Florian Munteanu, Phylicia Rashad
Along with
Planet of the Apes
and
Top Gun: Maverick, 2015's
Creed
is a rare example of Hollywood getting it right when it comes to
reviving a once successful property. With Sylvester Stallone finally too
old to don the gloves, Rocky passed the baton to
Michael B. Jordan's Adonis Creed, the son of Apollo, Rocky's
original opponent. It was a surprise when the franchise delivered a
worthwhile sequel in 2018's
Creed II, but the third instalment (or ninth if you want to count Rocky/Creed
as one long series) is running on fumes and it seems this series may
finally be in its dying rounds.
The trouble with Adonis as a protagonist is that he completed his arc
in the first movie. That was all about Adonis proving himself worthy of
his father's name, which he did in an epic final encounter with Scouse
brawler Ricky Conlan (Tony Bellew). Creed II didn't
really know what to do with Adonis, and it was the storyline featuring
his opponent Viktor Drago (Florian Munteanu) and his father Ivan
(Dolph Lundgren) that made the movie gripping. This third movie
puts Adonis centre stage yet still can't really figure out a way to make
him interesting.
With Adonis such a wet blanket here, it's just as well his opponent
gets us on our feet once again. Played by a charismatic
Jonathan Majors, Dame Anderson was once a mentor to a young
Adonis and a promising boxer in his own right until an incident lead to
him being incarcerated for 18 years. Now he's back on the street and has
his eyes set on not just a professional boxing career, but a shot at the
title. Now retired and in the promotion business, Adonis feels guilty
about how life turned out for his old friend and allows him to spar in
his gym. That's not enough for Dame however, who manipulates his way
into a title bout against the current champion, a young Mexican protégé
of Adonis.
Of course it's all building up to Adonis being coaxed back into the
ring and facing his demons, which have now taken the hulking physical
form of Dame. The trouble here is that the movie posits Adonis as an
underdog, as this series is wont to do, yet despite having been retired
for a couple of years, would he really be at a disadvantage against a
man who has spent the past two decades behind bars and who has only had
one professional bout? Adonis's ripped form suggests he hasn't spent his
retirement eating Cheetos on his couch.
This particular bout also feels like a betrayal of the Rocky
franchise's class dynamics. Stallone's Rocky Balboa is one of American
cinema's few working class heroes, and its his underclass status that
made us root for him. The 1976 movie saw a humble working class man
represent his street corner against a flamboyant showman who purported
to represent America. The series' low point, the jingoistic Reagan era
wankfest Rocky IV missed the point by having Rocky fight
for "The West," something that's far less tangible than a street corner.
Now in Creed III we're asked to root for a
multi-millionaire who lives in the hills above Los Angeles in a duel
against a working class man from a street corner of his own. Major does
a lot to engender empathy with a Terry Molloy-esque performance, but the
film only allows this to a point. Halfway through the film he morphs
into a carton villain in the Clubber Lang mould. It's a direct reversal
of how the previous film managed to humanise Ivan Drago, the most
cartoonish figure of the entire franchise to that point.
Jordan's directorial debut is a mixed bag. His inexperience is exposed
in the climactic bout, which sees the first time director opt for showy
visuals that come off as cheesy, the sort of idea a film student might
come up. Jordan and screenwriters Keenan Coogler and
Zach Baylin fail to translate the character dynamics into the
final bout. Watch it out of context and you would have little idea that
there was any personal history between the fighters (for an example of
how this should be done watch the concluding fight of Gavin O'Connor's
MMA family drama Warrior). Jordan's more flamboyant stylings do pay off in one of the series'
most exciting training montages, positively Reifenstahl-esque in its
unfashionable celebration of athleticism. There's a nice subtle piece of
visual storytelling that holds the camera on Adonis as he wishes Dame
luck in his first fight, his hesitation suggesting he's only now
realising what a mistake he might have made. A cute relationship between
Adonis and his hearing impaired daughter (Mila Davis-Kent), who
hints at following in his pugilist footsteps, gives the movie most of
its moments of heart, but Tessa Thompson's Bianca is largely
reduced to a scolding wife cliché.
There's just enough here to keep fans of this long-running series
content for two hours, but it's unlikely to become a disc you pull from
the Rocky/Creed boxset too often. Stallone sits this one out for a
producing role, and his absence is sorely felt. There's one particular
moment that feels tailor-made for Adonis to look up his mentor for some
fatherly advice, and the occasional nuggets of working class wisdom
peppered through the script feel like they long to be delivered by
Stallone's distinctive drawl.
