Here we go again with another film added to a franchise series, with this one adding itself to the collection of “Rocky” films. There have been so many of these that there is a scene in the film “Airplane II” where it shows a film poster for “Rocky XXXVIII” and an old man in boxing gear in the same pose as Stallone in the poster for “Rocky III”. With the re-birth of the franchise with “Creed,” I liked it because it was a story on it’s own, but with sequel, was this a good idea?
Directed by Steven Caple Jr., “Creed II” takes place shortly after the first film ended, with Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan) working his way up the ranks of the boxing world wining the World Heavyweight Championship. Just afterwards, he is challenged by Viktor Drago (Florian Munteanu), the son of Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren), the man who fought his father in the boxing match that Apollo creed died from, through promoter Buddy Marcelle (Russell Hornsby). What follows is the story of Adonis dealing with an opponent that is real personal and also dealing with friends and family relationships including Bianca (Tessa Thompson) and Rocky himself (Sylvester Stallone) at the same time.
The cinematography style is fine here from the run down areas of Russia and Philadelphia to the polar opposite of L.A. and the glitz of Las Vegas. On the acting, it was fine overall with the same style from Jordan, Stallone (who has always been consistent in his performance of Balboa), and Thompson from the other films in the series, but the best performance actually was from Munteanu in only his second film role. His mannerisms with so few lines let his actions do the speaking for his character in contrast to where Adonis’ character had a real chip on his shoulder (which tended to turn me off for caring about him).
This film is very (and I mean VERY) predictable, by just making itself a mesh of certain story points of the second, third, and fourth films in the “Rocky” series. The first “Creed” film had its own story, but this one had no major twists or surprises or storyline points that made it stand alone. Granted, I will say that I did not hate this film, but I did not love it either. I will still recommend this film, but as a viewing in second run.