Rocky Balboa is gone. No bones about it everyone: Sylvester Stallone is nowhere in sight in Creed III, meaning the “Rocky” franchise is now fully in Michael B. Jordan’s hands. Losing a star of a franchise is always a risky proposition, as you really see if the franchise was built for the star, or is built on the storytelling. Creed III is proof that this boxing franchise shows no signs of slowing down. In fact, this might be the best of the Creed films, and probably is in my Top 3 favorite movies in the Creed/Rocky Universe. I can’t believe Michael B. Jordan has overcome living in shadows of Michael Jordan AND Apollo Creed, but it’s awesome to see.
Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan) is in the Rocky III part of his boxing career. Top of the mountain, he goes off on a high after a fight in South Africa, content to retire and support his music producing wife Bianca (Tessa Thompson) and his deaf daughter Amara (Mila Davis-Kent). With the rest of his free time, Adonis coaches with his trainer “Little Duke” (Wood Harris), building up young boxers like his star pupil Felix Chavez (Jose Benavidez Jr.). Fate lures Adonis back to the ring in the form of Damian “Dame” Anderson (Jonathan Majors), a figure from Adonis’s past who’s back and hungry to pick up where he left off, boxing wise. While Adonis wants to take things methodically, Dame has zero patience, eager to make up for what he thinks to be taken time from him.
With Stallone leaving these movies, Creed III can be its own thing, creatively freeing it to do some of the most interesting storytelling in a Rocky movie. Most of the time watching a Rocky movie, we’re eager to get to the montages and the fight sequences. As such, the first hour is filled with forced melodrama or straight up over the top silliness (Thunderlips, or the greatest scene in any Rocky movie). Officially an Adonis Creed story, this film’s first hour might be better than it’s second for the first time since the first movie. That’s because of Damian Anderson. While “technically” our villain, Dame really isn’t: the one “evil” thing he does he does because he wants to make up for lost time. Instead of a blank slate charismatic upstart like Mr. T’s Clubber Lang, Jonathan Majors’s Dame is as compelling as Clubber, but with a tragic, fascinating backstory rivaling Adonis’s from the first Creed. More importantly, that backstory is woven deep into Adonis’s fabric as a man, trying to run away from a past that’s finally caught up to him. Despite looking like gods, Jonathan Majors and Michael B. Jordan are also incredible actors, and the scenes where they try to talk about what happened between them ripple with tension, especially thanks to Majors’s barely repressed anger and Jordan’s clear fear at the physical ghost of sins past.
With that compelling setup, Creed III is now free to do its version of a montage and boxing match. This is where the OG Rocky gets honored, using versions of the Rocky III and IV montages in fun, winking but modern ways. The final boxing match Jordan described as two gladiators doing battle, and it certainly feels that way from the get go. The “middle rounds” montage is given a new light here, smartly aligning the Dame/Donnie fight to the one in Warrior, where we really could be rooting for either guy. In addition, Jordan’s direction really makes the fight more personal than any Rocky fight since the first, clearing the pomp and circumstance away in favor of something more raw and visceral. The audience really feels each punch and emotion as both men find themselves confronting what they feared in that ring. Finally, Creed III doesn’t need to go off on the high of the match like most Rocky movies do: it has a lovely denouement that’s a perfect capper on the film we just saw. These guys know what they’re doing.
Creatively, Sylvester Stallone trusted the right guy. In Michael B. Jordan’s hands, the Rocky/Creed movies are in as good a place as they have been in years, creatively rich and filled with all sorts of ways to take Adonis, and hopefully Dame, into the future. At some point, I look forward to Amara stepping in the ring and doing a Creed version of Million Dollar Baby. Maybe consult Hilary Swank on that Michael B., she knows how to box and warn you what happens when you careen a franchise off the tracks.