The creative success of 2015’s Creed is a result of director Ryan Coogler and star Michael B. Jordan perfectly measuring Creed’s character arc against the mythos of Rocky. Rocky Balboa and Adonis Creed have little in common as characters, but Creed used that to its advantage, birthing something that felt truly unique while still ladling heavy-handed homage onto the audience. Creed II (not directed by Coogler) couldn’t replicate this, and in fact that film regressed into gimmicky nostalgia and tired Rocky tropes. The return of Dolph Lundgren is both the movie’s brightest spot but also a reminder by how much the movie relies on the franchise’s previous films. The result isn’t terrible, but Creed II might be the most forgettable Hollywood blockbuster of the last ten years, which may be even worse.
Creed III is directed by Jordan himself (his directorial debut) and as a storyteller, he puts effort toward severing the Creeds from the Rockys. There’s no Sylvester Stallone. There’s no scenes in Philadelphia. Even Bill Conti’s iconic score is embargoed until the last possible moment. And it’s the best decision the Creed movies could have ever made. As director, Jordan not only attempts to reorient the storyline but he also reinvents the series’ visual ethos. The gritty verisimilitude of the first two films is replaced by a more ambitious style, with a heightened sense of artificiality and slight glimpses of surrealism. Much has been made of Jordan’s love of anime, and he incorporates the genre’s exaggerated sense of drama into Creed III surprisingly well, staging his fights as epic showdowns between otherworldly titans.
The script, written by Keenan Coogler and Zach Baylin (Ryan Coogler gets a “Story By” credit) has more emotional depth than it has any right to have, forcing Adonis Creed into intense self-reflection within a morally complicated story that’s not too difficult for the audience to buy into. Within the opening scenes, Creed defeats Ricky Conlan (Tony Bellew) in a rematch from the first film’s climax. Creed has become the world champion and has ridden that glory into an early retirement, easing into his palatial Los Angeles home with his popstar wife, Bianca (Tessa Thompson), and their daughter Amara (Mila Davis-Kent). Amara is a sharp, precocious child, who thrives despite being fully deaf. Her one issue? She loves to fight, a skill that Adonis has taught her, which is now being unleashed on unsuspecting bullies at school.
At work, Adonis has transitioned into being a promoter while handling day-to-day operations at Delphi Boxing Academy with his coach, Duke (Wood Harris). He has a new fighter, Felix (José Benevidez Jr.), who looks like the latest world beater, and he’s trying to set up a primetime match between him and his Creed II rival Viktor Drago (Florian Munteanu). Free from the combat of being an active boxer, his life has taken a steady path toward sustained prosperity. That is, until the arrival of a childhood friend: Damian Anderson (an excellent Jonathan Majors). Damian and Adonis were in the same group home as young children, and suffered the same abuse at the hands of uncaring adults. As teenagers, it was Damian who was winning gold glove championships, while Adonis watched in awe. After a skirmish with police, Adonis managed to run away undetected, but Damian was arrested and sent to prison where he spent eighteen years behind bars. And now he’s back.
Jonathan Majors has been consistently wonderful in films since his great performance in 2019’s The Last Black Man in San Francisco. He has the range of a brilliant character actor, but the charisma and intensity of a movie star. He plays well with nearly any scene partner, and knows how to serve a film’s central premise while still giving credence to his own virtuoso talent. This combination of gifts is quite rare, and to watch him in Creed III – perhaps the most successful utilization of everything he has to offer so far – feels like watching a generational performer come into his own. His Damian is a man scarred by abuse, betrayal, and a system that was quick to incarcerate him. Now out of prison, he approaches his old friend with meek humility, only to reveal his cunning as the film unfolds, giving the Creed films their best villain yet.
The conflict between Adonis and Damian has the visceral physicality that a boxing movie needs, but Jordan is smart enough to make their discord outside of the ring as narratively important as their fighting inside of it. After Adonis gives his old friend a spot as a sparing partner for Felix, Duke warns the retired champ that this charity can backfire. Damian’s skills are still raw, but he has a hammer punch. In the ring he quickly resorts to dangerous tactics in response to getting outboxed. Even when it’s clear that Damian’s violence is untamable, Adonis still refuses to reject Damian’s pleas for a shot at a professional career. Damian is not only a reminder of guilt from Adonis’ past, but a threatening reminder of the fragility of Adonis’ demeanor. Just his presence unravels Adonis’ sense of stability. Not only a harbinger of unwanted memories, Damian is a re-animator of past traumas that Adonis has been suppressing for most of his life.
The sliding doors reality of the two men’s circumstance is similar to the central confrontation in Coogler’s Black Panther (which also starred Jordan, though that film had him in the antagonist role), another film about how even unequivocal Black success can still be sullied by the reminder of all the collateral damage that was accumulated in the process. In Panther, that was a secondary theme, where Creed III makes this the central focus. Damian’s fight is not simply revenge against a friend who turned his back on him, but a violent assault against a world that denied him even the opportunity for success. Jordan frames the Adonis-Damian finale wonderfully, not just as a boxing match, but an exorcism for both men, an attempt to heal themselves by re-enacting the brutality of their lives on their own terms.
Most movie star-turned-director films have at least a tinge of ego involved. It’s a welcome surprise how much Jordan sublimates his own star power to elevate Majors, a decision that pays dividends in the end result. If the first Creed was brilliant in its gleaning of Rocky to make something new, Creed III is notable for its total detachment. You’d expect the complete absence of Stallone to be more noticeable, but as director, Jordan’s command of the story is so confident that it never even becomes a factor. Like Creed II, this installment still struggles to make Adonis’ home life as compelling as his professional one, but Jordan’s chemistry with Thompson and the young Davis-Kent proves more interesting to watch here than the contrived theatrics from the second film (where simply having a baby was meant to be accepted as a major plot point). Creed III is a definite statement of purpose for Jordan as a filmmaker, and while I definitely wish I got to see more of him as a movie star (he should have several more tentpole projects than he does currently), its exciting to see that our understanding of his immense talent will continue to evolve.
Directed by Michael B. Jordan