Creed III

In some ways, Creed III represents an exciting new direction for the series. It’s the first to have no direct connection to the Rocky franchise. We see characters and reference events from the first two movies, which themselves may have been references to Rocky, like Viktor Drago. But whereas the plots of the first two centered around Rocky in some way, this one hinges on Donny’s relationship with “Diamond” Dame, who is a brand new personality. And while Creed did an excellent job of establishing itself and making itself clear without you needing to have seen Rocky, there was always that question hanging throughout if its success would only be due to that series, paralleling Donny’s journey through the plot itself.

Creed is one of the best sports movies I’ve seen, so I think it shed that albatross just fine. But still, it’s nice to see it able to draw on its own world to tell its own story.

That story finds Donny a few years into retirement after defeating “Pretty” Ricky Conlan, and Bianca producing instead of performing in order to protect her hearing. Donny co-owns Delphi now, and is surprised to run into his childhood friend Damien (Johnathan Majors) outside. Dame was a great amateur boxer in his own right, before a street brawl lands him in jail for 18 years. And now he wants a shot at the Heavyweight title as his first pro fight. Which eventually sets him on a path to fight Donny, of course.

That path is as predictable as they come. Almost every dramatic beat is telegraphed long before it happens, but still treated like a reveal, since we’re following Donny who works hard to give his friend the benefit of the doubt every time. Even when he pulls stunts like attacking Donny’s top fighter during a “friendly” sparring match. Or clearly is responsible for backing Donny into a corner where he has to give Dame a shot at the title.

The family drama that unfolds during the film feels almost exclusively like a setup for the next movie (yes, Jordan has announced Creed IV is happening), and as such is very unsatisfying at best, and actively works against the films stated themes at worst.

Watching Rocky work with Donny to train and prepare him for the fight was a highlight in the previous movies. We really get a sense of the regimen, the strategy, Donny’s weaknesses and how he shores them up. It feels real, it feels consequential. And of course, there’s tons of character building within them. In this one? It’s a dramatic montage where we’re cutting between Donny and Dame. There’s no talk of strategy, no sense of what Donny’s rust is after a few years away from the ring. It feels like he’s ready *snap* just like that.

Then the fights are…not great. There’s only two of them really (Dame’s amateur fight is only a few punch sequences). And those fights are not very well shot nor well choreographed. We get no sense of back and forth, no discussion of strategy. We don’t get a great sense of what makes Dame’s style so “dangerous” as people keep saying. They don’t tell a story, at least not well. And whereas the previous entries held the camera to allow us to see (and thus feel) the punches they’re taking, these fights are full of quick cuts at the moment of contact. As such, they don’t feel like much. And their narrative purpose is abundantly clear, draining them of their tension.

I want to jump back to the idea of legacy for a moment. The success of Creed is due to it being a fantastic movie, yes. But it was no doubt bolstered by virtue of building on an existing world and character set, even as it was adding a bunch of its own. Footage from the Rocky series, lots of discussion of those characters and moments, not to mention the presence of Rocky himself. Creed owes Rocky a debt. Which is why it’s so strange to me that not only was Stallone not in the movie (and allegedly wasn’t asked), but Rocky isn’t ever mentioned. Not even a throwaway line referring to him as his former trainer. I’m not saying the movie should bend over backwards to thank him, absolutely not. But not even resolving what happened to that character is an unexpected choice.

One miscellaneous thing to call out, which I don’t think is anyone’s “fault”, really. Since seeing CODA and The Sound of Metal, I feel like it’s painfully obvious to me when characters using ASL don’t actually speak it. Jordan and Thompson are great actors, but you can feel them thinking hard about their signs and being very deliberate with them. Mila Davis-Kent (who’s excellent as Amara, by the way) is deaf, and is clearly more comfortable with ASL, but has to come down to the level of the leads, and you can almost feel her straining against that constraint. This is one of the positive things about representation: now that those of us who don’t know are being exposed to the real thing, it becomes clear how much better that is than using someone who’s just pretending.

This is clearly the weakest entry in the series thus far, and I can only hope that Jordan matures as a director between now and Creed IV.