Creed III

While still not the rousing success that 2015's original Creed was, Creed III is much better than the sequel we got in 2018, and is the follow up that the first one deserves.  If Creed II took the likable characters that were introduced in the first and plopped them into an uninspired three act structure with none of the nuance we had come to love, then this film does a much better job of juggling expectations and the formula of the franchise, while still giving these characters plenty of emotion.

The movie also stands out as being the first film in the Rocky franchise to not feature any participation from its creator, Sylvester Stallone, although he is credited as an "in-name-only" producer on the film. One of the key problems I had with Creed II is that it had a hard time balancing the characters of Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan) and Rocky Balboa, and did not seem to know whose story we were supposed to be focused on.  I blamed this on the fact that Stallone himself had been given the screenplay of that film, and he struggled inserting characters that were not his own creation into his own world.  Stallone chose to sit out on this entry, and while it is strange that his character is not even mentioned here, it does allow the characters who were introduced in Creed to stand out again.

Another first this film marks is that its lead star, Michael B. Jordan, also takes on directing duties for the first time.  He shows a wonderful sense of pacing, as the film's nearly two hour run time is quite swift while you're watching it.  He also knows how to balance the drama and humanity of his characters with the boxing action.  This is much more a human drama than it is a sports story, and I was happy to see this movie go back to focusing on these characters and their personal demons, rather than fitting them around a predetermined sports underdog story like last time.  Jordan understands these characters and this world they live in, and he makes them all compelling, even if the plot they're in feels familiar.

One thing I noticed is that Jordan likes to focus on small moments with his characters that get to their core.  There's a scene early in the film where Adonis reunites with a friend from his youth named Damian Anderson (Jonathan Majors, who continues his rising star status here after appearing as the villain in the Ant-Man sequel just a couple weeks ago).  The scene is shot so intimately that we can see both the love and the tension that is brewing between the two men during their conversation.  This is appropriate, as it's their history that drives the plot.  The friend was on his way to being a professional fighter in his youth, and had taken a young Adonis under his wing.  But, a fateful night tore their destinies apart when Damian ended up going to prison for nearly 20 years, and Adonis got to live the life he dreamed of.  Now the guy wants his shot at fame, and Adonis is torn between respect for his former friend, and the knowledge of how dangerous he can be in the ring.

It is that relationship between these men both in and out of the boxing ring that drives the plot of Creed III, and the movie handles it beautifully.  This movie is so interested in getting inside the heads of its characters that it even finds an inventive way of doing it during the climactic fight, which I will not reveal here.  The film also wants to focus on Creed's growing family, as he is still married to the lovely Bianca (Tessa Thompson), and they now have a daughter named Amara (Mila-Davis Kent), who is deaf.  This is a welcome change, after Creed II basically slipped Bianca into the background as a "supportive wife" after she made such a strong impact as a character in the first film.  Here, she gets more attention, as she sees how this man from her husband's past effects him, and is scared it will tear all of them apart.  Also back is Phylicia Rashad as Adonis' mother, who gets more than a few powerful moments of her own.

It's not that we can't see where these characters and their plots are going to end up.  It's that I appreciated that this film was taking its time to explore them and giving this wonderful cast ample opportunities to fill them out.  I enjoyed spending time with them, and I appreciated that this movie was putting a strong emphasis on them, which I had missed in the last movie.  There's actually not much here that is new, or that we haven't seen in the previous eight Rocky movies.  But it's all handled with great care and by a wonderful cast.  I also appreciated how clean and well shot the fight sequences were.  In interviews, Jordan has said he drew a lot of inspiration from his love for Japanese anime in staging the boxing scenes, and he comes up with some inventive ideas, such as when he does visualize his fighters' emotions in a key sequence.

Creed III lacks the surprise of the first, because we are familiar with these characters by now.  However, it also understands these characters, and knows how to make them stand out from the formula of the plot, which is where the last sequel fell short.  While I don't think Stallone should be completely cut out as he has been here, I do appreciate that this film has been given a fresh look by someone close to the people who inhabit the story, and knows how to get to their core. 

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