Creed 3 review: Michael B. Jordan’s Rocky sequel is a knockout

Creed III faces the unique challenge of bringing the Rocky series out of Sylvester Stallone’s shadow. The ninth installment of the franchise that started with 1976’s Rocky This is Stallone’s first film that features him onscreen and in creative roles. This time, the directorial reins have been handed to Michael B. Jordan, who plays Rocky’s protege Adonis in the Creed movies. Jordan directs his first movie, and is a true anime/manga fan. He expands the visual vocabulary of the Hollywood boxing movie by adding a unique cinematic flair.

Jordan’s approach sometimes works against the saga’s previously grounded nature, but Creed IIIWith enough visual panache, it can be covered up by its occasional narrative inelegance. But its strongest suit is its creators’ desire to weave a character-centric tale that doesn’t repeat the beats of the Rocky movies, the way Creed Creed IIThe following is a general outline of Rocky Rocky IV. At the same time, the new film doesn’t mimic the emotional arcs of previous Creed installments. Scripted by Keenan Coogler and Zach Baylin (from a story they co-wrote with Ryan Coogler, Keenan’s brother and director of Creed and the Black Panther movies), it continues the trilogy’s running theme of people confronting the past, but it’s the first Creed movie where the emotional weight doesn’t stem from the original Rocky films.

CreedIt is about Adonis in relation to Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers), who was his father. Creed IIHe is seen facing Viktor Drago,Florian Munteanu), who is the son of Rocky IV villain Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren). Creed III draws on Adonis’ history as a child rescued from the foster care and juvenile detention systems by a family of means. (Apollo dies in Rocky IVPhylicia Rashed plays Mary-Anne Rashad, his widow in each of the Creed movies. Adonis is confronted with the reality of his privilege as Black man. His family name gave him instant fame and helped him escape poverty and violence. This specter takes the form of Adonis’ old, forgotten friend, Damian “Dame” Anderson (current Marvel Cinematic Universe star Jonathan Majors), who has been released from prison after nearly 20 years. When he seeks out Adonis’ help to enter the boxing world, the former champion reluctantly agrees.

Damian (Jonathan Majors), a boxer in a grey sweatshirt, black sweatpants, and electric blue boxing gloves, leans down out of a boxing ring in a gym to bump fists with Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan) in Creed III

After a prologue hinting at Adonis’ fraught history with Damian, the movie ropes in familiar faces from earlier in the series to tie up loose ends. Three years into Adonis’ retirement, he and his former trainer, Tony “Little Duke” Evers (Wood Harris), now mold the next generation of boxing greats at their gym, drawing from their fathers’ long history together. Adonis lives in an enormous mansion, where his wife, Bianca (Tessa Thompson), produces music in her private studio, and similarly nurtures up-and-comers rather than performing onstage herself, though her career choices weren’t entirely in her control. (Bianca’s hearing loss, established in Creed And the result has been worse.

Amara, Mila Davis-Kent’s young daughter is an amazing firecracker. (Davis-Kent is deaf, and so is her character — a significant amount of the film’s dialogue is in American Sign Language.) They all share a happy existence on the surface, but Adonis historically hasn’t been the type to open up with his emotions, and Creed IIIThis limitation is taken full advantage of.

Damian brings with him long-buried childhood memories and guilt. Adonis made it out, after all, while Damian ended up behind bars for something that may have been Adonis’ fault. Both men refuse to directly or honestly confront this resentment — Adonis doesn’t have the emotional wherewithal, while Damian uses friendship to conceal ulterior motives. The possibility of conflict pervades every conversation and makes their get-togethers riveting.

We’re barely two months into 2023, and it’s already Majors’ year, between his imposing regality as the villain in Quantumania: Ant-Man & the WaspHe is a deep-seated insecurity and obsessive bodybuilder, which led to his obsession with the Sundance film. Magazine DreamsHis explosive rise in popularity. Creed III. As Adonis’ new antagonist, his quiet scheming — leading to an inevitable Top 10 Anime Betrayal — bears the operatic hallmarks of a mustache-twirling baddie, and his frequent in-ring outbursts when training with Adonis’ proteges are born from a simmering rage. And yet he creates one of the Rocky series’ most compelling and nuanced characters through the way he carries himself, with his “don’t fuck with me” physique and his shoulders hunched from decades of isolation. Although his eyes may be tired, his focus is never lost. He sees Adonis as the highest point on the boxing ladder.

Damian (Jonathan Majors) slouches in the corner of a boxing ring during a match, shirtless and sweaty, as attendants offer him a water bottle and lean over to confer with him in Creed III

Jordan, meanwhile, trains his lens on Adonis’ emotional vulnerabilities, which the character is desperate to conceal. Adonis withdraws even further from his emotions when compelled by Jordan to reveal more. For most of the movie’s 116-minute run time, that’s the ring he’s fighting in. Unable to use physical combat as an outlet, he builds up anger that eventually boils over in unhealthy ways — most frequently in Bianca’s direction, though she manages to hold her own.

But what’s especially moving and challenging about Creed III is the way his festering rage colors even his most seemingly gentle and caring moments as Amara’s father. The Creed series began with the question of what Adonis inherited from his father — and what these films inherited from the Rocky franchise. But three movies in, the focus has pivoted to what Adonis himself will pass down, and what the Creed movies stand for outside of Rocky’s shadow. A story about violence in a language that suppresses honest expression and reconciliation. Adonis also has to consider his character traits when training his daughter for self-defense.

Jordan’s performance isn’t just in conversation with Majors. They are both defined by the pasts they have and the isolation that has shaped them. Adonis is a recluse who retreats in his shell. Creed Creed IIBut in Creed IIIJordan forces him eventually to overcome his withholding tendencies, even if it means making a mess before his loved ones. Unfortunately there are several missed chances for dramatic scenes between Adonis, Mary-Anne. Although the subplot seems meaningful on paper it is too fast and mechanically ineffective to create a lasting impression.

It is a well-balanced drama. Creed III struggles to overcome its inherent contradictions: It’s a film about leaving violence behind, but its third act — featuring the inevitable boxing match between Damian and Adonis — is framed as an extension of that idea, instead of in opposition to it. One key line of dialogue even seems to switch a character’s entire ethos from general anti-violence to pro Adonis-on-Damian violence specifically.

But while that sticks out strangely at first, it’s part and parcel of a film that not only frames fighting as its characters’ default lingua franca, but does so in the specific mode of a shonen manga or anime, where the action premise is so entwined with the character drama that they’re practically inseparable. The Netflix series is another recent Hollywood production that uses this method. Cobra KaiKarate is the solution to all interpersonal and personal conflict. This paradox is a crucial stylistic departure in the film as Jordan shows his director’s skills during fights.

Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan), in sweats and white boxing gloves, crouches in the corner of a gym boxing ring and looks grimly determined in Creed III

Moments in the film’s early going offer hints of the approach, which eventually blossom by the third act. He and cinematographer Kramer Morgenthau isolate fighters’ body parts to emphasize the confrontation. You will see glowering eyes in many of the anime-style close-ups. In order to imitate the anime action, they warp and blur the focus of the frames surrounding the characters.

The bare inspiration of this naked inspiration is far from reality for most Rocky Mountains. Scenes of fight. But Jordan leans all the way into it, folding his seemingly unstable narrative approach — the violence of the ring as an arena for catharsis that might end violence — into dreamlike vistas that foreground the characters’ suppressed conflict with jaw-dropping formalist flair. There are narrative road bumps involved in trying to reconcile the franchise’s American sports-drama roots with sports-anime inspirations, but the emotions hold it all together.

Jordan’s replacement for Stallone in the role of director is a Rocky-style trajectory, however, Jordan also works hard to separate the two. Creed IIIThe Rocky franchise. Rocky Balboa only warrants a quick mention here, but mostly, this movie’s tale of fame and money, of dealing with retirement, of bottled-up emotions, and of confronting open wounds is all completely distinct from the way Rocky’s sequels approached similar stories. Creed IIIThese themes instead are grounded in Black Americans’ personal experiences and the unforgiving system they live within. The book examines the contradictory perspectives of Black success and fame as both markers of individual success and acts that assimilate or betray the Black community.

Over the course of the original series, Rocky’s biggest villain was the passage of time, and the unpredictable shape of his future. Adonis’ villain has always the past, and the ways it continues to shackle him in the present. Jordan’s approach to these issues is inspiring. Creed III makes it as definitive a chapter as the character’s blistering first appearance. Jordan would love to continue working behind-the-camera with these characters.

Creed III Film debuts March 3 in the theaters