When Ryan Coogler’s Creed arrived in theaters in 2015, many viewers—and I include myself in that—presumably went into it expecting little more than a cynical stab at brand extension for the venerable Rocky franchise that had come to a seemingly final and unexpectedly moving conclusion nearly a decade earlier with Rocky Balboa, only to be shocked to discover that director/co-writer Ryan Coogler had given us a film that paid effective homage to the original Rocky while still managing to branch off into its own specific and highly entertaining thing, anchored by a star-making performance from Michael B. Jordan as the troubled son of the late heavyweight champion Apollo Creed and a star-reconfirming turn from Sylvester Stallone as Rocky that received a much deserved Supporting Actor Oscar nomination that he frankly deserved to win. Creed II (2018) was not nearly as effective—mostly because it seemed too much like a fan service celebration of Rocky IV, a film I have never had much use for in the past (my adoration for mid-80s Brigitte Nielsen notwithstanding)—but it was still a pretty good movie, due mostly to Jordan’s effortless charisma and his on-screen chemistry with Stallone.
Now comes Creed III, in which Jordan returns once more to the role of Adonis Creed and moves into the director’s chair for the first time while Rocky Balboa is neither seen nor mentioned at all, save for one glancing reference, a creative move that no doubt has its roots in some rancorous legal wrangling over creative rights between Stallone and the producers of the franchise. Although the complete absence of Rocky is a bit jarring, it is not that huge of a hurdle since the arc that the character shared with Adonis had pretty much been completed over the course of the previous two movies—it might have been nice to see him, even in a glorified cameo, but it ultimately isn’t that big of a problem. What is a problem is that the film as a whole is a bit of a drag, one that brings together a number of undeniably compelling and charismatic performers and then gives them nothing to do in a screenplay that never coheres into an effective drama nor makes a particularly compelling case for its existence as anything other than a sure-fire money-maker at the box office.
As the film opens, Adonis has retired from boxing at the top of his game and is now settling into a comfortable retirement that sees him dividing his time between coaching and mentoring the next wave of fighters, primarily WBA champion Felix Chavez (Jose Benavidez) and spending time with wife Bianca (Tessa Thompson), whose hearing issues have forced her into producing music for others instead of performing it herself, and their adorable moppet daughter Amara (Mila Davis Kent). However, the memories of the troubled childhood that he has long since compartmentalized away suddenly return with the arrival of Damien “Dame” Anderson (Jonathan Majors), a childhood friend and fellow fighter who has just finished serving an 18-year prison sentence. Feeling both a desire to help an old friend and no small amount of guilt regarding his own participation in the crime that led to Damien’s incarceration and how he made no effort to see or contact him during his stint, he offers him a job to serve as a sparring partner for Felix before an upcoming title fight.
At first, this arrangement seems fine and Adonis even goes so far as to introduce Damien to his wife and child, though he remains vague about what went on between them back in the day. Tensions begin to rise a bit at the gym when it starts to become apparent that Damien is a bit of a dirty fighter who is willing to skirt the rules in order to win. Then he drops the big bombshell—he wants Adonis to arrange a title bout for him so that he can at last have the career triumph he feels he was denied due to his imprisonment. Adonis tries to explain that there is no logical way that an aging amateur fighter can suddenly be given a title shot for what would be his first professional bout but Damien doesn’t care, pointing out that Adonis’s own rise to the top was equally improbable. Inevitably, the kind of circumstance that Adonis considers impossible arises and Adonis is able to give his old friend that desired title shot. Just as inevitably, Adonis’s good intentions go sideways and he is forced to deal with the ghosts of his past as well as Damien’s betrayal before—Spoiler Alert—the two find themselves together in the ring at last in front of a capacity crowd at Dodger Stadium.
Following in the footsteps of the previous Creed films, albeit somewhat less overtly, Creed III seems to take much of its inspiration from one of the old Rocky movies. Unfortunately, in this case, Jordan and screenwriters Keegan Coogler and Zach Baylin have elected to do a reworking of Rocky III, the exact point in that franchise where it shifted from the Capresque humanism of the first two film into something more garishly cartoonish—the result was undeniably popular but the best things about it were the incomparable presence of Mr. T and the fact that it wasn’t quite as crappy as Rocky IV. Most of the key dramatic beats—Adonis’s retirement from the ring, the arrival of a fearsome contender determined to call him out of his cushy retirement, the tragic demise of a venerable loved one, the lengthy training montages—more or less match key elements from Rocky III and while I suppose they at least fit in with the increasingly unrealistic milieu of that particular film, they come across far more jarringly here because the film genuinely wants to treat them seriously.
While all of this is going, the film introduces a number of plot threads—Bianca’s regret over no longer being able to perform the music she loves due to her hearing issues, Amara’s difficulties with the bullies at her new school and Adonis’s mother (Phylicia Rashad) recovery from a recent stroke and her connection to her son losing contact with Damien for all those years—but then fails to do much of anything with them. By leaving these characters in the dramatic lurch, the film does a great disservice to them (especially Thompson, a generally magnetic presence whose once-fascinating character has now been reduced to just another worried wife) and to the story as it instead lurches haphazardly to the big climactic fight—oddly, even though Creed III is the shortest of the three films, it feels longer than them due to its wonky pacing and lack of any strong narrative or emotional throughlines.
The best scenes in the film are the early ones involving the reunion of Adonis and Damien, both of them attempting to put their obviously conflicted feelings towards each other to the side until they can no longer be contained. The material here isn’t especially inspired here but the combined intensity of Jordan and Majors makes up for the flimsiness of the script and even suggests interesting ways that the narrative could develop if it weren’t obliged to follow the expectations of a Creed sequel. Unfortunately, not even their combined energies can make up for the lockstep progress of the narrative. As for his first tour in the director’s chair, Jordan does okay. He handles the actors well and while I am not certain that his major artistic flourish—an audacious attempt to liven up the final fight by presenting much of it in a highly stylized manner that finds the two opponents symbolically battling their respective inner traumas as well as each other—is entirely successful, it is a choice that is interesting enough to make me curious to see what he might do at the helm of a project that did not have certain audience expectations baked in from the get-go.
Creed III isn’t terrible in the way that Rocky IV or Rocky V were and if it had been just another boxing movie, I could possibly see giving it a pass. However, considering how surprisingly good and effective Creed and, to a lesser extent, Creed II were, this mostly unambitious retread can’t help but seem forced and uninspired by comparison. If this is indeed the end of the Creed arc—and the film certainly wants to suggest that—then it is a bit of a shame that it couldn’t go out on a note as high as it came in on. If it isn’t—and there was a time when people thought that Rocky III would be the finale of that series—then I can only hope that all involved can get together and give the franchise the send-off that it deserves.