If you haven’t been paying attention to the RCU, or the Rocky Cinematic Universe, the latest edition releases in theaters across the country today. I won’t go into the backdrop of the first 6 of the Sylvester Stallone-led films, which debuted in 1976 with the Academy Award Best Picture winner Rocky. The spin-off Creed in 2015 followed the “love child” of Rocky’s first and greatest rival—his friend and fellow boxer Apollo Creed. Adonis “Donnie” Johnson (side note: is this Drake’s child’s namesake?), who later changed his last name to match his late father’s, asks Stallone’s character to train him to become a boxing champion. Off the street Adonis finds immediate success, following Apollo’s legacy. In Creed II, Adonis defeats another boxing legend’s son, Viktor Drago, Rocky IV’s Ivan to move him firmly into boxing superstardom. Both movies were without a doubt “boxing movies.” Creed III strays a bit from the RCU formula.
The most glaring departure from the past pertains to the involvement of Sylvester Stallone. He doesn’t appear at all in Creed III, and furthermore, is only mentioned in passing. Last year, Stallone made headlines after taking to Instagram to chide Irwin Winkler (producer of the Rocky and Creed franchises) and his son David Winkler (producer of Creed franchise) in a dispute over rights to the nine films. Stallone would later say that the focus of Creed III will be solely on Adonis and his family, leaving no place in the movie for the “Italian Stallion.” That drama alone would be enough to put pressure on a tentpole like Creed but that wasn’t all.
Creed III also made headlines when it was announced that Michael B. Jordan, the trilogy’s star, would be making the movie his directorial debut. From the outside looking in, I thought this could be what makes or breaks MBJ’s career. He showed a certain level of bona fides in the past, reaching a cult-like status from the public with his roles as Wallace in the first season of The Wire and Vince Howard in the last two seasons of NBC’s Friday Night Lights television show (in doing research for this review, I found out that Jordan replaced Chadwick Boseman to play the same character in the hit soap opera All My Children in 2003 when both men were getting their starts in the biz, wow!).
Jordan then had his breakout in Ryan Coogler’s (Black Panther) directorial feature-length debut about the death of Oscar Grant—a young Black man killed by a BART police officer in Oakland, California in 2009. The film, Fruitvale Station, went on to win the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award for U.S. dramatic film at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, and the Best First Film at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. Jordan immediately became a household name, with critics calling him “a very young Denzel Washington” and naming him to several lists as a rising star in the industry. Twelve days after the movie was released to a wider audience in theaters, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) tapped Coogler to direct a Rocky spin-off—he would later bring on Jordan to join him as the titular character. Since then however, MBJ has not quite lived up to the high praise. His career is at an inflection point.
Look no further than when it was announced Jordan casted Jonathan Majors (Lovecraft Country) as his co-star and foe in Creed III. This was the general reaction from the Twittersphere:
I honestly don’t think this particular tweet was trying to discredit MBJ as much as it was recognizing we’re currently witnessing a moment for Majors. But putting Jordan’s acting chops on the same level as Ray Allen’s is a huge knock regardless of context. Sure, he hasn’t had the career he was expected to have to this point; the 2021 movie Without Remorse did him no favors and his biggest role outside of the Creed movies, Killmonger in the Black Panther, wasn’t exactly one of his brighter moments. However, prior to this movie, I contended that if you give him a character with depth, co-stars with talent, and a director/script up to the task, MBJ can be as great as anybody else acting today. I was proven right with Creed III.
SPOILER ALERT: If you’re planning to watch this movie, stop here.
In part 3, we follow Adonis in his post-fighting career. He goes out on top, becoming the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world in his last fight set in South Africa—taking a page out of boxing’s zenith, “Rumble in the Jungle.” Adonis’ life feels much different than the past two films: he’s taking on life post-boxing as the sport’s premier promoter, a la Floyd Mayweather or Oscar De La Hoya; he’s learning how to be the father to a growing daughter who happens to have a hearing impairment worse than her mother Bianca (Tessa Thompson, Passing); and he’s trying to tap into what it means to deal with his emotions without the ability to overcome them in the ring.
One day as Adonis looks on as his old trainer Duke (Wood Harris, The Wire) coaches his protégé Felix (real-life boxer Jose Benavidez Jr.) at the LA training gym Adonis owns, he runs into someone from his past—his former friend Damian (Majors). In their youth it was Damian or “Dame,” not Adonis who was the rising boxing star. Dame won a regional Golden Gloves tournament championship, an amateur competition that can quickly elevate an aspiring boxer towards a future career as a professional prizefighter. Donnie held Dame’s gloves and gave instructions during Dame’s fights while Dame took down foes one-by-one. The two were inseparable.
Earlier in the film, we flash back to a night when after one of Dame’s impressive knockouts, Adonis found himself in a tussle of his own. While entering a convenience store, Adonis ran into an adult he recognized. He gave the man a brief verbal greeting followed by a much longer physical one, beating him to the ground in a fistful fury. The man’s two friends jumped in, gaining the upper hand on an adolescent Donnie. Dame came to his rescue, shooting the gun he kept in his bag at the men. Donnie fled the scene and Dame got arrested. 18 years later, they’re reunited. Adonis still holds on to the guilt of what happened; he left his friend and didn’t reach out all those years later to check up on how he was doing. Dame wrote him letters every year, watching his former buddy live out his dream from behind a prison cell, taking note of every feat. All Dame wants is a second chance at life and an opportunity to make that dream come true, and Adonis has the cachet to give it to him.
An injury to Viktor Drago (Florian Munteanu reprising his role from Creed II) caused by a strike by man at a album release party for Bianca’s new artist opens up a spot for Dame to fight Felix. It’s a risk to take a former felon off the street and give him a title fight as his return to society but it’s one Adonis – because of loyalty, guilt, a true belief in Dame or all three – takes. On fight night, Dame, fighting dirty, knocks Felix out cold. Adonis, apoplectic at the wild turn of events, finds out later from his mother (Phylicia Rashad, The Cosby Show) that Dame knew the man who put Drago out of commission. She kept the letters a secret from him for all those years. One of the letters came with a picture of the man from the brawl at the party. When Adonis approaches Damian, Dame reveals it was all a ploy and makes it clear he still holds a lot of resentment towards Donnie—for abandoning him in his time of need. This revelation sets up beef between the former friends and all but guarantees they will face each other in the ring to settle their differences.
Creed III is a departure from its predecessors; boxing takes a backseat to the real-life battles Adonis and the people around him face—and I love it. The first time Adonis and Dame connect in the diner, fireworks between two actors at the top of their game explode off the screen. Adonis’ guilt and Dame’s lost dignity comes through without either of the men addressing it head on. The tension in that scene, due in large part because MBJ the director knew to hold the audience in the discomfort of that moment, was palpable. Robert Daniels goes in depth on that scene in his review for Inverse. We continue to stay with all of Adonis’ warts throughout the movie, all stemming from his lifelong inability to understand or verbalize his emotions. It’s an excellent look into toxic masculinity that makes its point without turning off the audience with preachiness. Tessa Thompson also brings life to whatever she touches. Sign me up for whatever she’s in for the next however many years.
Despite my praise, there are two major qualms I have with the film. The first is that we don’t spend nearly enough time in certain scenes and with certain characters. Creed III’s run time lands at just a touch under the two hour mark, but for my money, could have easily been 30 to 45 minutes longer. Just like that diner scene, I wanted more of Adonis and his demons, more of Bianca and her career transition, more of their daughter Amara (Mila Davis-Kent) and her emotional issues that mirror her father’s, more of Mrs. Creed and her health struggles, more of Dame and his reintegration into the outside world, more of their childhood, more of everything. It’s rare in mainstream movies to get any depth. But Jordan and the writing team of this film (Keenan Coogler, Ryan’s brother, and Zach Baylin, writer of King Richard) provided it. Usually our toes are dipped in the pool, but this time we walked down the pool’s steps on the shallow end. I just wanted to jump off the diving board into 10 feet of water. We touch on a big issue like machismo, we hear that you can’t solve all life’s problems with fists, and yet, we can’t end the movie with a resolution outside the ring.
My second qualm is that I didn’t need Dame to “become” a villain to make the movie interesting. After making it clear to us that Dame was in the wrong place at the wrong time, not an irredeemable person, I thought it would be powerful to keep him in that light. There’s a world in which he could have had issues with Adonis – jealousy, anger, feelings of betrayal – without him concocting a devious ploy that affects others and makes him out to be evil. But I understand the reason he had to take on that role for the movie.
Either way, Creed III is a revelation; in my estimation, it’s the finest of the trilogy. It’s even possible that I think it’s the best of the RCU as a whole, but I need time and a couple more watches of the 9 films before I lean into that spicy take. Michael B. Jordan’s career didn’t need complete revitalization, but he did need a touch-up and I think he accomplishes it here. As both an actor and new filmmaker, Jordan is up there with the greatest young artists working in the film industry. I can’t wait to see what’s next from him, Majors, Thompson, and potentially, the Creed franchise.
Are you excited for Creed III? Let me know in the comments!
I loved Creed III! This is your best review yet.