Creed III

When Creed opened in 2015, helmed by lit­tle-known direc­tor Ryan Coogler who only had one fea­ture cred­it to his name, the Rocky fran­chise spin-off was far bet­ter than it had any right to be. Detail­ing the jour­ney of Ado­nis ​‘Don­nie’ Creed, son of Rocky’s leg­endary foe Apol­lo Creed, Coogler’s thrilling box­ing dra­ma proved a crit­i­cal flash­point for the career of its lead, Michael B. Jor­dan. Eight years on and one sol­id 2018 sequel lat­er, the stu­dent becomes the mas­ter both in front of and behind the cam­era as Jor­dan makes his direc­to­r­i­al debut with Creed III.

We rejoin Don­nie in his last fight against Creed rival Ricky Con­lan (Tony Bellew). After a suc­cess­ful bout, he retires from the ring and begins run­ning a box­ing gym and fight pro­mo­tion busi­ness in part­ner­ship with his train­er Duke (Wood Har­ris). He’s also deep into father­hood, rais­ing daugh­ter Ama­ra (Mila Davis-Ken) along­side wife Bian­ca (Tes­sa Thomp­son), who is now a dec­o­rat­ed singer turned pro­duc­er in her own right. The Creeds have made their dreams come true. But Don­nie faces a rude awak­en­ing with the arrival of for­mer friend Dami­an ​‘Dame’ Ander­son (Jonathan Majors). An inci­dent that occurred when the pair were chil­dren saw Dame – then a promis­ing young box­er – receive 18 years in prison. Now released, he’s hell­bent on heavy­weight glory.

While all the hall­marks of the Creed Uni­verse are present, from dot­ing step­moth­er Mary Anne (Phyli­cia Rashad), to the wel­come appear­ance of Vik­tor Dra­go (Flo­ri­an Munteanu), one fig­ure remains out­side the frame. Rocky Bal­boa (Sylvester Stal­lone) was a core part of the series, not only as the bridge between the clas­sic movies but as a men­tor and source of the men­tal and emo­tion­al edge Don­nie need­ed to best each com­peti­tor. How­ev­er, Rocky’s absence comes at a nec­es­sary point in the fran­chise where Ado­nis must grad­u­ate to become his own dri­ving force. Michael B. Jor­dan also makes this tricky ascen­sion as he takes the director’s chair and puts his stamp on the film in a way that’s admirable in its fear­less qualities.

Leav­ing Philadel­phia behind and mov­ing to Donnie’s home­town of Los Ange­les, Jor­dan makes a clear break from the past and, com­plete with a quin­tes­sen­tial­ly West Coast sound­track, asserts that the nar­ra­tive final­ly rests entire­ly out­side the Bal­boa lega­cy. This sets the stage for Jor­dan to con­tin­ue to make choic­es that dis­tin­guish Creed III from its pre­de­ces­sors. A well-doc­u­ment­ed fan of Japan­ese ani­mé, Jor­dan pas­sion­ate­ly embraces the oppor­tu­ni­ty to infuse the film with its core tenets.

Present in the box­ing scenes from the out­set but com­ing to fruition most faith­ful­ly in the final fight, Jor­dan makes use of slow motion, fre­net­ic com­bi­na­tions and sharp close-up cam­era angles to illus­trate both the inter­nal and exter­nal bat­tle between friends. This dis­tinc­tive method doesn’t always mesh and may leave some miss­ing a more lengthy match-up with a pol­ished style. How­ev­er, it’s use­ful as a way to reimag­ine fight scenes the audi­ence already expects at this point.

As Dame, Majors is for­mi­da­ble both men­tal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly. Despite dis­play­ing a lev­el of brava­do, Majors for­goes mous­tache-twirling vil­lain ter­ri­to­ry to play a qui­et­ly men­ac­ing foe. A tight­ly wound coil, machine-like in dri­ve and pow­er, Majors keeps the audi­ence on ten­ter­hooks as we wait for Dame’s inevitable strike. Able to poke venge­ful­ly at a past Don­nie has shut him­self off from and left his loved ones in the dark about, Dame rep­re­sents his deep angst and guilt. In fac­ing off against his friend, Don­nie is forced to con­front the tox­i­c­i­ty of bot­tling up his emo­tions, and while the Creed films have often been at their most impact­ful when explor­ing mas­culin­i­ty, there are threads that feel unfin­ished in this outing.

Sim­i­lar­ly, an inter­est­ing sub­plot where Ama­ra seems to take on her father’s trait of pro­cess­ing her issues with her fists doesn’t quite blos­som to its full poten­tial. With a run­time of just 117 min­utes, Creed III is the short­est in the tril­o­gy, and while the moviego­ing cli­mate isn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly cry­ing out for longer films right now, it does feel like an extra 15 min­utes might have allowed more time to breathe between scenes and expand on cer­tain nar­ra­tive developments.

In tak­ing on a pop­u­lar fran­chise as his direc­to­r­i­al debut, Jor­dan could eas­i­ly have felt the need to play it safe for fear of derail­ing a series close to the heart of fans and him­self as its star. Yet, with a clear vision and under­stand­ing of the sto­ry­telling, and buoyed by Zach Baylin and Keenan Coogler’s deft screen­play, Jor­dan makes an ambi­tious debut that needs more fine­tun­ing at times but retains the best traits of the tril­o­gy to remain a suit­ably intro­spec­tive, yet thrilling chap­ter in the Creed legend.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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