With spinoff movies, I can get skeptical which is the case with the Creed films. I genuinely enjoyed the first film but with Creed II, they simply took the storyline of Rocky III and used the villain from Rocky IV and it felt very rushed. There seems to have been a bit more time taken between the second film and Creed III, so I was hoping this franchise would turn things around a bit.
Michael B. Jordan directs for the first time here alongside familiar cast members Tessa Thompson and Phylicia Rashad while adding Jonathan Majors. Adonis Creed (Jordan) has decided to retire, and while running his gym, a man from his past named Damian Anderson (Majors) arrives after being released from prison. Given their past, Damian feels he missed his shot at being the world champion and wants to make up for lost time. Adonis, torn between the business and his feelings for Anderson, winds up making mistakes and then trying to fix them for everyone.
I could definitely tell that this as Jordan’s directorial debut, and while he did some of the fight scenes well, his decision to add different forms of pizazz and WWE-type visuals just took me out of the story. He tries to make the best film that he can emphasizing on the emotions of Adonis’ situation, but the plot is just a rehashed story that has been told too many times before. Jordan himself does a good job in his role as a man dealing with retirement and trying to be a good family man while trying to be a good friend and dealing with the guilt of his past, but the best part of the film is the Majors, who plays all of the different layers of his character (both sincere and otherwise) very well.
Basically, the plot points from Rocky III that were not taken and used in Creed II were used in Creed III for me. Except for the performance by Majors as Clubber Lang (sorry, I meant to say Damian Anderson) nothing stands out. This series is starting to bring true the scene from “Airplane II” that had the movie poster for Rocky XXXVIII, making this film that has already achieved my “Ice Aged out” status, so I will not ever watch this film again.
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