Creed III

Released in 2015, Creed did a brilliant job of making the themes, emotions, and hero of the Rocky franchise accessible to a new generation, without subjecting them to watching the old movies. Let’s get this out of the way. While the original Rocky, the Academy Award winner for 1976’s Best Picture, remains an appealing crowdpleaser and its first sequel is certainly watchable, the three that follow grew increasingly ridiculous and off-key until its writer/star Sylvester Stallone restored the line to modest respectability with 2006’s long-in-the-tooth revival Rocky Balboa.

Then came Creed, which might just be the gold standard of “requels”, movies that revive a dormant franchise while taking things in a new and different direction. The film gladly advanced the careers of its talented makers, writer-director Ryan Coogler and leading man Michael B. Jordan, who had previously collaborated on 2013’s heart-rending Fruitvale Station and would go on to make big box office impact on Marvel’s Black Panther. It also demonstrated how satisfying it could be to breathe new life into a tired, lapsed property for which people still held goodwill. We’ve since seen other sagas similarly renewed — Blade Runner, Ghostbusters, Scream — with pleasing results, whether or not steep box office goals are met.

Creed II, arriving in late 2018, was a good sequel, which lost Coogler due to his preoccupation with Black Panther and suffered accordingly, but not enough to lose us with its desert training sessions and callbacks to Rocky IV‘s Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren) in a screenplay partly written by Stallone.

For Creed III, Stallone, now 76, has moved on, unhappy with the direction the series has taken and opting to publically air his grievances with 91-year-old producer Irwin Winkler (while still taking his contractually-obligated producer’s credit). Coogler is back as producer and shares story credit with his brother Keenan (Space Jam: A New Beginning), who also tackles screenplay duties with Oscar-nominated King Richard scribe Zach Baylin. Taking over directing duties in the tradition of Stallone is Jordan himself, making his directorial debut.

There’s a lot to wrap your head around in those personnel changes, each inviting speculation of a dramatic Shakespearean plot. But the most important thing is that none of it hurts Creed III, which is a minor improvement over Creed II and the third best film in the Balbonic universe with which it almost seems to cut ties. Unless I missed it, Rocky gets not even a single mention in this threequel. The omission does not seem to stem from behind-the-scenes drama or malice but rather a franchise that has enough going on in the moment not to need to look back and rely on nostalgia for its pleasures.

Having said that, the film does open in 2002 with a bit of retconning to show us that as an adolescent, Adonis Creed would sneak out at night and support his friend Dame Anderson in lucrative underground boxing matches. An incident the movie takes its time to fully present lands Dame in prison for the better part of two decades while Donnie overcomes some rough patches on his way to fame, fortune, and the undisputed heavyweight crown.

Present-day Donnie seems to have everything sorted out: a happy marriage to musician-turned-producer Bianca Taylor (Tess Thompson), a sweet young daughter (Mila Davis-Kent), and a big lavish home in Beverly Hills that’s outfitted with, among other things, game-worn and presumably autographed Shaq and Kobe jerseys. When Dame (now Jonathan Majors, Marvel’s new big villain) shows up at Donnie’s boxing studio, the two catch up amidst the tension of the unmistakable contrasts of their respective life journeys. Fresh out of jail, Dame is hurt that Donnie never answered any of the letters he sent him over the years. Donnie, who never got them, feels guilty.

But not guilty enough to agree to Dame’s ludicrous plan to get a title fight. Until circumstances change and Dame is needed to keep the money and momentum flowing of Donnie’s burgeoning post-boxing promotional career. The script requires some big leaps in logic, but it pulls it off and it becomes clear that we are inevitably headed to a showdown of childhood best friends who have evolved quickly but believably into chilly adversaries.

Baylin and Keenan Coogler’s Creed III script could be the basis of a master class in sequel screenwriting, namely in its ability to direct your sympathies exactly where it wants them to be. By all accounts, Dame should be the hero of this story, a loyal friend who lept to young Donnie’s defense, suffered a momentary lapse in judgment, and dealt with the consequences, spending what could have been the prime of a boxing career in prison while his best friend completely turned his back on him. Now free, Dame does not want a handout, only a chance to succeed and make up for the eighteen years he’s lost.

At the same time, Adonis Creed has already won us over, his rags to riches tale having been told over the course of two enjoyable movies. We fully can empathize with his perspective and can easily see “Diamond Dame” as a threat to the Creed empire he’s carefully built from the ground up.

In short, Creed III gives you much more to chew on and think about than your typical third installment. Watching Rocky III immediately before or after this would underscore in no uncertain terms how much better this Creed franchise has been than the original line from which it spawned. The first Creed may not yet reach the iconic heights of the original Rocky, but both of its follow-ups have been a clear cut above Rocky‘s sequels, especially this one.

Jordan does great work on both sides of the camera, making it look impossibly easy for an actor in his mid-thirties with no prior directing experience whatsoever to throw himself into these demanding duties and succeed at every turn. He definitely is helped not just by the sturdy and substantial screenplay but by sharing the screen with an actor of Majors’ caliber. The same qualities that make Majors seem out of place in an Ant-Man sequel on which the Marvel Cinematic Universe makes an unlikely pivot give Dame weight and presence here. This may be a character we’re meeting for the first time, but we never doubt what he’s been through and how his present actions and state of mind are shaped by the time he’s lost in the justice system and the friend he’s lost in Creed.

In a film that wisely and refreshingly stays under two hours, the supporting cast chips in limited but appreciated notes. Particularly welcome are Phlyicia Rashad, back for the third time as Donnie’s mother, and Wood Harris (forever best known to my generation for Remember the Titans), who gets to do a little more in Rocky’s absence as Donnie’s most trusted trainer.

You generally expect franchises to move forward with diminishing returns. For every threequel that subverts expectations and improves upon its predecessor, there are fifty that simply recycle beats and lose sight of what made the property appealing in the first place. That makes Creed III a rare triumph and establishes Jordan as a filmmaker to watch. With or without Stallone, this saga isn’t going away anytime soon.