Solid 8-Count
Actor Michael B Jordan’s gonna fly now (heh heh) as a director, starting with the extended ‘Rocky’ world of de facto mentor Ryan Coogler.
Creed III
Director: Michael B Jordan • Writers: Keenan Coogler, Zach Baylin
Starring: Michael B Jordan, Tessa Thompson, Jonathan Majors, Wood Harris, Jose Benavidez, Florian Munteaunu, Phylicia Rashad, Mila Davis-Kent
USA • 1hr 56mins
Opens Hong Kong March 2 • IIB
Grade: B
In the eleventh round of Creed III’s pre-ordained title fight, there’s a moment when the crowd fades into a anonymous grey blur and all opponents Adonis Creed (Michael B Jordan) and Damian Anderson (Jonathan Majors) see is each other. Jordan, who takes over directing duties from Ryan Coogler and Steven Caple Jr, is a self-declared anime nerd, and there’s a spiritual stylistic link between this and, say, The First Slam Dunk. It’s not subtle language, but it gets the job done. Ditto for the film. It’s not Raging Bull, little is, but it progresses Creed’s story along just fine.
Creed III is an easy movie to sink into, even for those among us who know nothing about boxing, know nothing about its progenitor, Rocky, or don’t give a shit. It bears all the hallmarks of the classic sports drama: the rise and fall, a crotchety trainer, a cocky challenger to the throne, family upheaval, unlikely triumph and, finally, acceptance of whatever that triumph looks like. Creed III is by the numbers and it has to be by definition, but it has a few things on its side that lift it above its cliched station. One is its emerging director in star Jordan, finding just enough room to move and shake the Rocky roots for good. The theme’s in there, but just barely. Most of all it has Majors – hands down the best part of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania – as attitude-heavy challenger Anderson. Pardon my French but his guy is just about the fuckin’ coolest actor to become a movie star in ages, and his performance as Damian is the tide that lifts all boats in Creed III.
Watching for the boxing
Writers Keenan Coogler (Ryan’s brother and the perpetrator of Space Jam: A New Legacy) and Zach Baylin (King Richard) shake things up by starting Adonis, or Donnie, at the top of his game. He retires as the world’s undisputed heavyweight champ and settles into life as a gym owner, mentor, promoter and family man with music producer Bianca (Tessa Thompson) and their daughter Amara (Mila Davis-Kent). Things are great until his past comes back to haunt him, as they do in movies like this. Childhood buddy and then-budding boxer Damian, or Dame, gets sprung from prison and comes looking for the title shot he never got, thanks to Donnie. Dished out piecemeal in flashbacks (in which some amazing casting has Alex Henderson and Spence Moore II playing younger Donnie and Dame), you can see what the youthful, boneheaded decision was a mile away, and by the time the whole story is revealed its impact is somewhat muted. “That’s it?” But that’s not really the point. The point is Adonis’s push back on the nearly psychotically driven Dame’s ambitions, reconciliation of their shared history – and putting an exclamation point on his boxing supremacy.
Creed III finally steps out of producer Sylvester Stallone’s shadow, finding a way to be its own thing and, blessedly, feeling more streamlined and focused than Caple’s middle instalment, with better pacing and what feels like way, way less plot to muddle through. Creed II just went on. And on. And on. Even still, there are plenty of facepalm moments, particularly involving Mama Creed’s (Phylicia Rashad) failing health, and Coogler and Baylin come this close to wading into Fast and Furious territory by bringing Viktor Drago (Florian Munteanu) back into the fold as a buddy.
But, ironically, like Rocky and Creed, Creed III works best when it focuses on Donnie and Dame, and basks in Jordan and Majors’ loose, easy dynamic that rides a knife edge of tension, a character-building if not stylistic skill Jordan may have picked up from Coogler (the director) on Fruitvale Station and Black Panther. It’s a good thing he was busy directing, too, because he has less to do here. He’s got no Rocky Balboa to clash with, no Apollo Creed standard to live up to. So it’s left to Majors to give Creed III its emotional centre. When he shambles into the gym like a wounded puppy and lets his crooked smile slip at the suggestion of disappointment it belies a vicious, manipulative, dangerous underbelly that’s entirely understandable. And it’s creepy how easily Majors balances the two and makes them work in concert. As an actor Majors is following a similar trajectory to Jordan, emerging in a critical darling (the somnolent The Last Black Man in San Francisco to Jordan’s more engaging Fruitvale), making a stop at elite HBO drama (Lovecraft Country and The Wire) before landing that Marvel cheddar (Panther, Quantumania). Go for Creed, stay for Dame. And at the risk of sounding oh-so-20th century, it must be said … (newly minted Calvin Klein chonies model) Jordan and Majors are in, uhhh, fighting form. I’ll just leave that there. — DEK.