Courtesy of United Artists Releasing
In a sports drama that feels like a thriller, Jonathan Majors proves his skills once again as Adonis’ ominous friend-turned-boxing foe.
Adonis Creed, like Rocky Balboa before him, is a fighter who faces his demons and finds his triumph-of-man-mind mojo, all leading to his inevitable delivery of that knockout punch (well, okay, Rocky did actually lost the fight in “Rocky”). The first two “Creed” films were crowd pleasers, as were the six “Rocky” films, in which the hero took on an adversary representing the forces of darkness. The boxing opponents in these movies are a bit like comic book supervillains: Clubber Lang, Ivan Drago, Drago’s vengeful son, and so on. They were catchy and at times memorable characters, but part of their appeal is that they are two-dimensional angry cop foes that you would hardly classify as multi-layered human beings.
But “Creed III,” directed by star Michael B. Jordan with impressive debut flair, is infused with a different note. Adonis, who has retired in his swanky LA mansion, seems to be on top of the world. He has a tender and playful relationship with his near-retired pop star wife Bianca (Tessa Thompson) herself (due to hearing loss she switches to the producer’s role), and their deaf daughter Amara (Mila Davis-Kent). ) with whom he speaks in fluent sign language. At the gym he mentored new heavyweight champion Felix Chavez (Jose Benavidez), a hothead with a habit of beating up his sparring partners. But all is well until an old friend of Adonis shows up.
His name is Damian Anderson (nickname: Dame), and Jonathan Majors, the actor currently burning screens as Kang the Conqueror in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, plays him as the blast from the past, which you don’t want to see. Dame has just been released from prison after serving 18 years. He’s free, but he has nothing – no money or connections, no family to help him. But he has Adonis, his old buddy from the hood. In the opening scene, we see the pair in a flashback when Adonis (played by the innocent-eyed Thaddeus James Mixson Jr.) was a teenager and Dame (Spence Moore II) was an aspiring Golden Gloves contender with raw talent. But it all came crashing down outside a liquor store when Adonis attacked an old nemesis and Dame, who was drawing a gun, was knocked down.
From the moment he emerges and leans against Adonis’ vehicle with louche claim, Major’s checkers plays with a superficial amiability cut with a passive-aggressive stinginess that’s present in everything he says. He wants help and support – a foothold and a strong friend to give it to him. And Adonis is there; he wants to help. But we can already see the signs of something – that Creed III won’t just be a boxing movie. It’s going to be a hostile film, like Cul-de-Sac or The Gift or the grandfather of them all, the original 1962 Cape Fear.
Dame, like Robert Mitchum in that film (or Robert De Niro in Scorsese’s 1992 remake), is a convict who feels wronged and has returned to play with the man he believes to be responsible. Why, he wants to know, didn’t Adonis return his letters from prison? (Because Adonis says he didn’t get it.) Oh, and by the way, Dame mentions he might have a shot at the title. Is this a dream or a threat or both?
In “Creed III,” Majors has an imperious gaze and a quick manner of speaking, as if Dame were discarding his words to contemplate their hidden meaning. His most casual sentence stings like a small punch. When he sits across from Adonis at a diner and enjoys his first restaurant meal in years, he engages in a “friendly” conversation, but also says, “This conversation isn’t real.” Majors exudes a danger that electrifies the air around him, and his lady is a master of manipulation. He guilts Adonis into letting him work out at the gym and once he gets his foot in the door, he becomes Felix’s sparring partner. The film then turns ominous at a record release party, where the sudden return of Viktor Drago (Florian Munteanu) opens the door for Dame to get his title shot, in a champion-vs-nobody match reminiscent of the one seen in Rocky. And who do you think he’ll want to fight next?
Working from a screenplay by Keenan Coogler and Zach Baylin (story by Ryan Coogler, who also serves as producer), Jordan displays dramatic finesse in his enactment of the Adonis/Dame relationship, presenting it as a fractured brotherhood that speaks major disruptions—the tug-of-war between loyalty and violence in dispossessed childhoods. Creed III is a sports drama that feels like a thriller with an urgent conscience. It’s a far more dynamic film than the competent but formulaic Creed II, even if it falls short of the soulful cinematic bravura of the first Creed.
Jordan, however, as Adonis, gives what is perhaps his most comprehensive performance to date: sometimes proud, sometimes fearful, sometimes brave, sometimes tearful, sometimes at the end of his strength. As a director, he clocks the film well and directs the boxing matches with brutally imaginative precision. Dame may be old for a fighter, but what he lacks in youth he makes up for in a vengeful killer instinct. His body is chiseled, his soul hardened. He’s a destruction machine, all right, but more than that, he’s the return of the downtrodden, the side of Adonis that Adonis is running from. Should Creed III turn out to be the last Creed film, it will prove to be a satisfying finale. But if not, it raises the bar.