A little cheese on everything usually makes it better right? Chili cheese dog. Bagel with cream cheese. Cheeseburger. Here’s the thing though. Too much cheese on those luscious treats, and you tip into gooey unappetizing nonsense. Creed II is the movie version of an entire aerosol can of Cheese Whiz straight into your mouth. A little bit of Cheese Whiz is funny; if you spray the whole can down you throat there’s something a tad off.
Since we left Adonis Johnson (Michael B. Jordan), his life has skyrocketed. He’s now the heavyweight boxing champion of the world, coached there by his father Apollo’s rival, Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone). His longtime girlfriend Bianca (Tessa Thompson), despite her hearing loss, has the music career she has always wanted. The couple has their sights set on Los Angeles, moving closer to Adonis’s mom (Phylicia Rashad). Seeing all this love being thrust upon Adonis is Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren). Humiliated by his defeat at the hands of Rocky, Ivan has been training his son Viktor (Florian Munteanu) to recover his family name by inflicting more pain and possibly death on the Creed family.
At ESPN, Jalen Rose is often quoted as saying, “Give the people what they want.” Creed II is utter and total fan service for Rocky Fans. Much like Rocky III’s Mr. T, Viktor Drago grows up in grey and blue bleakness in the Ukraine, channeling that hate instilled in him through the trials and tribulations of being poor and ostracized. Meanwhile, Adonis is living the good life in sunny beautiful Southern California with a flashy music superstar: sadly there is no Eye of the Tiger here, but alas, music rights. Then the Rocky IV stuff starts dropping in: Adonis feeling he has to take a fight because he’s fighting for something bigger than him, but not for himself, causing him to be estraged from his trainer Mickey, err, Rocky. As you can see, Creed II pastes in famous pieces of the previous sequels in hopes that the movie feels like a greatest hits album, which it kind of does. You can’t help but sneer when Drago implores his son to break Adonis, or when Rocky/Adonis train in the dregs of the LA desert to hit the reset button. It’s no climbing a mountain and screaming DRAGO!!!!!! but it’s still pretty satisfying. And you KNOW a white towel is factoring in at some point…
Even surrounding by the schmaltzy window dressing, thanks to the strong foundation Ryan Coogler left behind, there’s some real interesting stuff in here that keeps you from simply laughing at the over the top fan servicing. Obviously, legacy is a big deal in Creed II, as well as what are you fighting for. The best scenes of the movie are Rocky, Adonis, and Bianca discussing why Adonis needs to fight these people, and the complicated reasons why he can’t simply walk away from the situation. This Creed film also has an air of finality when you’re watching, because you start to realize Rocky is basically relegated to the background of what was his story: this is Adonis’s movie now. You get the sense that Stallone senses his time is nearing its end to for this character too, and he delivers another lovely restrained performance reminding you how sad it will be when he stops walking into a ring going “How you doin?”
Even though I was hoping for more crazy over the top call backs in Creed II, I was mostly satisfied with the result. Any fan of the Rocky Franchise will find some way to appreciate this movie, and even new fans have some really cool characters to root for in Adonis and Bianca. I just need one scene where Adonis wins a match, and yells at Bianca something like “Yo B, you like that?” Work on that catchphrase while you’re kicking ass, Michael B.