With Sylvester Stallone removed from the equation, Creed III is the toughest test of Adonis Creed’s attractiveness yet – and a new challenge for first-time director Michael B. Jordan
With the exception of superhero films, the most bankable (albeit somewhat derivative) assets for major studios right now are legacy sequels and reboots. Sometimes a film aspires to act as both a sequel and a reboot: a way to give fans what they want from the franchise’s past while also providing a glimpse of the future. The fifth Scream movie, itself a legacy reboot sequel, even coined a term for this type of project: “Requel.” The requel craze isn’t inherently good or bad – for every stinker like Ghostbusters: Afterlife, there’s always hope we get a bold swing like The Matrix Resurrections. But among the many iterations that have surfaced in recent years, 2015’s Creed still deserves to hold the crown — or rather, the championship belt.
Directed and co-written by Ryan Coogler, Creed captures the underdog spirit of the original Rocky films while introducing a new fighter from a well-known boxing lineage: Adonis Creed (played by Michael B. Jordan), son of late Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers). Rocky Balboa transitions from Sylvester Stallone from fighting in the ring to mentoring Adonis outside of the ring. The beloved Rocky hallmarks are still present in Creed – the Philly training montage is nothing short of spectacular – even as Adonis tries to build his own legacy away from the boxing legends of yore.
Don’t take anything away from Creed, which belongs on a short list of the biggest blockbusters of the 21st century, but the film would never fully step out of Rocky’s shadow – least of all if Stallone’s boxer of the same name was still in the game. For Creed and its sequel, past and present remained intertwined: none other than Ivan Drago’s son served as Creed II’s main antagonist. Again, there’s nothing wrong with legacy sequels using franchise staples to their advantage: although it’s not that good like its predecessor (admittedly a tall order), the Drago-centric Creed II also garnered positive reviews. But in the long run, it was hard to shake the feeling that the Creed series would eventually falter if the films stayed committed to what came before them.
In any case, the newest film in the franchise, Creed III, had no choice but to stray from the actual Rocky. Stallone, a longtime critic of Rocky and Creed producer Irwin Winkler, wasn’t happy with the new film’s development. (The bad blood stems from the actor not owning the franchise he helped create.) “It was taken in a very different direction than I would have been,” Stallone told in November. “It’s a different philosophy.” Perhaps someday we’ll find out what exactly prompted Stallone to retire from the series he’s been associated with for nearly 50 years; Meanwhile, with his iconic mentor removed from the equation, Creed III is the toughest test of Adonis Creed’s desirability yet.
Creed III begins with Adonis hanging up his gloves after a hard-fought rematch against an old foe from the first film. Having established himself as a legend and champion of the sport like his father, Adonis is ready to spend more time with his wife Bianca (Tessa Thompson), a prolific musician who has herself made a career switch from performing to producing, and their young daughter to spend Amara (Mila Davis-Kent). Adonis’ retirement is, of course, disrupted by a figure from his past: Damian “Dame” Anderson (Jonathan Majors), a former amateur boxer who spent nearly two decades behind bars for an incident in his youth. With his old friend now one of the most famous athletes in the world, Dame hopes Adonis can help him kick-start a belated boxing career. Partly because of the guilt he still harbors over Dame’s imprisonment, Adonis is willing to help him.
Of course, anyone familiar with sports movie clichés (or just seen the trailer) knows that (a) Adonis’ retirement will be short-lived and (b) Dame isn’t just here to go back in time. In terms of Rocky’s backstory, Dame is essentially a modern-day variant of Rocky III villain Clubber Lang (Mr. T), who went from being jailed to challenging the Italian stallion in the ring. In fact, the similarities are so striking that it’s not too surprising that the introduction of Lang’s son as a new antagonist in Creed III was brought up by Stallone, with professional boxer Deontay Wilder being considered for the role. (That this didn’t happen could explain Stallone leaving the franchise.)
But Dame is a character with no ties to the Rocky universe other than his connection to Adonis, which works in the film’s favour. For once, the narrative weight of the story rests entirely on Adonis’ shoulders, and thus also on Jordan’s, who is making his directorial debut with Creed III – much like Stallone did with the first Rocky sequel. And just as Stallone shaped the Rocky franchise at his own discretion, so Jordan has the right to put his own stamp on the Creed series, and for the actor that means channeling his love of anime into a boxing film.
Adonis and Dame are not to be confused with the Dragon Ball Z duo of Goku and Vegeta, but the anime influence is particularly evident in Creed III’s fight scenes, which often use slow motion to dramatize the impact of some punches. (Somewhere, slo-mo scholar Zack Snyder nods his head in agreement.) But the boldest swing (no pun intended) is saved for the climax of the fight, where Adonis and Queen are so symbolically transported into an empty arena in one round carries their shared emotional baggage. It’s a more literal take on battling his demons, and it’s arguably the most defining moment of Jordan’s foray into filmmaking.
Love it or hate it, these qualities at least propel the Creed films in a new direction. That’s also thanks to the cast of Majors, a rising star who infuses Dame with the kind of menace and charm that makes the character irresistible, even as he employs some shady tactics to achieve his boxing dream. In many ways, Dame’s journey mirrors the path Adonis would have taken had Apollo’s widow Mary Anne (Phylicia Rashad) not brought him into her home as a child – and all the wealth and privilege that life entails. It all adds up to a clever inversion of the original Rocky: Adonis, like his father, is an athlete who’s reached the top of his sport, while Dame is the rowdy underdog. In other words, Creed III still has the crowd-pleasing hallmarks of a reboot – mixing and matching what has worked in the past to pave a new way forward.
With Jordan already confirming that Adonis’ journey will continue for a fourth film — along with plans to expand the “Creed-verse” through spinoffs — we’ll soon find out just how much bloom remains on the rose of the Rocky franchise and his required sports is film clichés. (Is it even legal to make one of these films without a training montage?) But that’s a dilemma another time: For now, Creed III has largely succeeded in stepping out of Rocky’s shadow, and Adonis seems more than ready for a few more Rounds before finally hanging up the gloves. Like his predecessor, Adonis will not go down without a fight.