Creed III Review: The Skeletons In Adonis’s Closet Knock On The Door
Cast: Michael B. Jordan, Tessa Thompson, Jonathan Majors
Director: Michael B. Jordan
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3.5/5 (three and a half stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
Thursday 2 March finally arrives in our theaters with Warner Bros. Pictures Creed III, the third chapter of the sequel series born in 2015 with the feature film directed by Ryan Coogler, a successful offshoot of the Rocky Balboa saga, to then continue in 2018 with Creed II. The very first film of the franchise in which the iconic character played by Sylvester Stallone does not appear and debut behind the camera for Michael B. Jordan, Creed III is probably not the best piece of the new trilogy (at least, at the moment), but it is the one more exciting. In our review of Creed III, we will dive deeper into the pitfalls faced by Michael B. Jordan by agreeing to enter the control room for the new chapter dedicated to his Adonis Creed, without forgetting the excellent cast of the film and its most tantalizing: Jonathan Majors, who with his villain represents all the emotional fulcrum of this new piece of the franchise that began in 1976 with the iconic Rocky by John G. Avildsen.
Los Angeles, 2002. A young Adonis Creed runs away from home in the night to go to attend a boxing match, where Damian, his best friend, competes. Dame wins, dreams of the Olympics and professionalism, and Adonis dreams with him. But, coming back from that match, they meet someone. Thus, with a leap into the past, Creed III begins, in cinemas on Thursday 2 March distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, the third film in the Rocky spin-off saga, which still sees Michael B. Jordan in the role of Adonis, the son of Apollo Creed, and for the first time also sees the actor in the role of director. But Creed III is also the first time without Sylvester Stallone on screen. And Sly, we admit, we miss him a lot. As we explain in the Creed III review, we are facing a film that is paradoxical in its way: the moment he gives up Sylvester Stallone and the character Rocky, he plunders with both hands from the plots of the historical films of the Balboa saga. In addition to proposing a sincerely very questionable morality.
Creed III Review: The Story Plot
After many difficulties and after overcoming many obstacles, Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan) is finally regarded as one of the best boxers around and his stock is constantly on the rise. Suddenly, Damian Anderson (Jonathan Majors) reappears in the champion’s life: a childhood friend who has just finished serving an 18-year sentence, but above all a former boxing prodigy back on track to recover everything he has lost. The meeting between the two, which also coincides with Adonis’ withdrawal from the rings around the world to devote himself to his family and the gym he manages, however, will be the fuse that will rekindle the presence of ghosts from the past that Creed thought he had forgotten forever. To face his former childhood friend, Adonis will be forced to enter the ring again.
After the excellent second chapter directed by Steven Caple Jr., Creed III seems to ideally close a narrative circle with the cumbersome past that the MGM series has always carried on its shoulders as a burden: the first cinematic piece of the Rocky Balboa narrative universe without the presence of the famous character of Stallone and definitive emancipation for Adonis Creed by Michael B. Jordan, who welcomes the burdensome witness also taking the field as director. His first time behind the camera.
Creed III Review and Analysis
Based on an original screenplay co-written by Ryan Coogler (who remains among the producers of the film), his brother Keenan, and Zach Baylin, Creed III is probably not the best of the new trilogy, but it is perhaps the most genuinely exciting and resolved of the sequel saga. Because the double-edged sword of this third film installation was to find its celluloid place and identity after Stallone’s moving farewell to Rocky Balboa which was played in Caple Jr’s feature film. A narrative identity that Michael B. Jordan allows his Adonis to be acquired by climbing into the control room for the first time in his career as an excellent commercially successful interpreter.
Hand in hand with the professional and intimate emancipation of his character, Jordan also definitively distances himself from the cumbersome legacy of his mentor Stallone, building around the new heavyweight world champion a story of the ineluctability of the past that seems to converse with genuine intellectual honesty The whole saga began way back in 1976. There is no escaping the past (and the director/actor knows this well), but Jordan accepts an even greater challenge by entrusting his character’s last fight in the ring to the expert hands of an actor whom it seems he is destined to take important steps also in the world of directing.
Yes, because Creed III works great without necessarily feeling inferior to the two chapters that preceded it. Maybe not everything comes back in the writing phase, the direction of the rookie Jordan often struggles to find his vision and artistic identity, but the actor behind the camera has guts to spare when he decides to stage an unexpectedly profound psychological examination of its protagonist. After the last world title won, Adonis decides to retire from the ring and continue his work as a trainer and manager of his gym, dividing himself between profession and family life; the unexpected arrival of a childhood friend reopens old wounds never healed that will question the life he knew up to that moment.
A premise that, managed by a solid and effective canvas and by a thoughtful and essential direction, makes Creed III perhaps the most genuinely exciting and human piece of the trilogy dedicated to Adonis, even without the physical presence of Sylvester Stallone’s irreplaceable Rocky Balboa. A challenge, that of making the boxer played by Jordan walk with his legs, more than successful with a packaged product. Merit not only of the director/actor but also of an apt new entry, capable of summarizing in his psychology all the emotional and Manichean fulcrum of this third chapter: to give Adonis Creed a hard time comes the ghost of the past Damian Anderson, played by a perfect Jonathan Majors. The American actor gives a sculptural physique with a torn soul to the skeleton in the closet of the young Creed’s difficult adolescence, bringing to the stage presence and charisma to spare.
Further confirmation of Majors’ versatile talent after his television apprenticeship and his next role as the antagonist of the fifth phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. A villain, the one emblematic of Damian Anderson, who will remain in the history of the MGM franchise as one of the most successful anti-heroes of the successful series. These are the elements that make Creed III a decidedly successful chapter, capable of keeping up with its predecessors without losing an iota of the appeal and elements that have always made the saga started by Sylvester Stallone great. A saga that now, entrusted to the care of a multifaceted Michael B. Jordan actor and author behind the camera, seems really in excellent hands.
Creed III Review: The Last Words
Michael B. Jordan’s directorial debut also corresponds to the most genuinely exciting chapter of the Creed sequel saga so far. The American actor takes the reins from Ryan Coogler and Steven Caple Jr. and accepts the challenge behind the camera with diligence and passion. The presence in the cast of Jonathan Majors as a villain alone is worth the price of admission, by the way. Used safely, but capable of entertaining and exciting: Creed III is a well-managed film that lacks something powerful that is remembered. If you like the genre though, don’t miss it.
