Creed III (2023)

My nerves jangle every time a new extension of the Rocky series comes around.  Will this be the one to kill the series?  I have seen it happen before – Rocky IV!  Rocky V!  When will it run out of energy?  Fortunately, ever since Stallone decided to bring the series back down to Earth with the flawed-but-beautiful Rocky Balboa in 2006, the agony has lessened.  All three of the Creed movies are definitions of what the first two Rocky movies were about – about fighting demons, battling with your own ego and figuring out what’s right.  It’s that humanity that keeps going and makes it invaluable.

With Creed III Stallone is gone from the series for the first time – a battle with producer Irwin Winkler over the direction the series was taking – and so too is the director of Creed and Creed II, Ryan Coogler.  This time the director is Michael B. Jordan himself who, like Stallone, finds a course for his character that is both personal and heart-tugging.  And yet I must say, based on this film, Jordan is a much more assured director.  He is not afraid to take his character down some dark and unwise paths – Stallone was always afraid to do that.

As both director and star Jordon gives Creed III a sense of purpose and style that matches what Adonis Creed is going through.  It might have been easy for him to simply run through the series’ familiar paces, but there’s a lot more to this film than you might expect.  Second sequels are a hard bargain, but he focuses on the characters and that makes then work.

Creed III moves Adonis through several stages of his life.  We meet him first on the streets of L.A. in 2002 (played by Thaddeus Mixon) where he sneaks out of his mother’s house to go and see his best friend Damian (Spencer Moore II) box at an amateur match downtown.  They are best friends with an emotional bond that is close to brotherhood.  Then an unexpected turn, after the match the two are involved in an incident of street violence that turns their destiny, forcing Adonis on his path to the high-road of success and Damian on the low-road to an 18-year prison sentence that stunts his promising boxing career.

Cut to present day.  Adonis has just wrapped up a phenomenal career and, much like The Italian Stallion in Rocky III, has a family, a great life and really no hard reason to fight anymore.  He has retired to the sweet life with Bianca (Tessa Thompson) and their hearing-impaired daughter Amara (Mila Davis-Kent) in a luxury home in the Hollywood Hills.  The production design here is perfect, matched against the tranquility that Adonis now feels are the interiors of his home – a creamy, soft Zen landscape far from the blood, sweat and tears of the boxing ring.  It is matched by his own gym where he teaches trainees the technique of boxing rather than the brutality.  There’s a philosophy in everything.

BUT!  No one can outrun the past forever.  Dame gets out of prison (now played by Jonathan Majors) and asks Adonis to train him for a title fight.  This is not how boxing works, Adonis explains, but Dame is not shy about reminding his old friend where he’s been the past two decades.  Rough-edged though he may be, Adonis gives him a shot.

But we know that it cannot be all that simple – we’ve seen the last eight entries in this series and we know that this is the way of things.  Not to give too much away but Adonis suffers a personal loss and the screws of destiny put him on the outs with Dame to the degree that they – naturally – must iron out in the ring.
When this movie was over, I was kind of stunned.  This is the ninth in the overall series and the third in the Creed series alone.  By this point, most series are spinning their wheels and running out of gas.  I was amazed how involved I got I this story and, at several points, did not actually know where it was going.

I appreciated the construction of this film.  There are stylistic choices that make it special.  In particular, and in addition to Adonis’ home life, are the choices made during the final match in which the ring goes silent and we get a visual representation of the personal struggle of both Adonis and Dame.  It’s really extraordinary without feeling overwrought.

Plus, like the early Rocky films, this movie is populated with a lot of interesting characters.  There’s Jordan, of course, whose Adonis has mellowed since the first Creed into a thoughtful family man who thinks in terms of strategy rather than emotion.  I liked Tessa Thompson whose Bianca could have just been going through the old suffering wife bit (much like Talia Shire) but she has her own agenda.  She’s watched her music career take a different path due to her hearing loss.  Both Bianca and Adonis have to contend with destinies rerouted. 

I also like Mila Davis-Kent as Amara who forms a bond with her father that is spelled out over the barriers of her hearing-loss.  I liked Wood Harris as Adonis’ trainer Little Duke who becomes his common sense.  I liked the character of Feliz Chavez, played by real-life WBO welterweight champ José Benavidez Jr. who is a rising star at Adonis’ gym and who seems to have an agenda and a life all his own.  But I especially liked Jonathan Majors as Dame.  He’s an actor I haven’t seen before, but he has a haunted face and a brute strength that make his very human and very terrifying.

I love this series.  I love what it has to say.  I love this movie for not feeling like just another entry to make a profit.  Yes, it has a few “movie moments” that cull the reality (there’s a plot point about some letters that Adonis never got that I thought felt a little mechanic), but this is a very human drama, a very real movie that doesn’t rely on theatrics to make its point.  I don’t know where the story is going next, but I can only hope that whomever takes over will be as smart as Stallone and Coogler and Jordan have been.