Creed III

 

Score:  A-

Directed by Michael B. Jordan

Starring Michael B. Jordan, Jonathan Majors, Tessa Thompson

Running time: 116 minutes

Rated PG-13

Long Story Short:  Creed III returns Adonis "Donnie" Creed, son of Apollo, to the ring in a conclusion to the smash hit trilogy spin-off of the Rocky boxing franchise.  Star Michael B. Jordan also directs here and does a great job, with the help of a rock-solid script.  Jonathan Majors, playing Donnie's childhood friend, is a worthy foil both in and out of the arena, and we get a satisfying conclusion to Donnie's journey.  Highly recommended.

After defeating the man who gave him his only career loss, thus becoming the undisputed boxing champion of the world, Donnie (Jordan) retires to focus on his family, wife Biance (Thompson) and young, deaf daughter Amara.  While working in his gym training the next generation of boxers, Donnie gets an unexpected visit from a childhood friend, a man he hasn't seen for nearly twenty years.  The old friend, Dame (Majors), soon begins to disrupt Donnie's well-laid retirement plans.  In order to secure his future, Donnie must make peace with his past, and part of that requires stepping into the ring, one last time.

Creed III is a very well-made film in star Michael B. Jordan's directorial debut, a solid and satisfying conclusion to the trilogy spun off from the Rocky series - but fully proven on its own merits.  The highlight of the movie is Donnie's development and emotional payoff.  Still, it offers pure entertainment value from the training and boxing scenes, too.  It's difficult to do a lot different than what we've seen from the first two films, but Jordan finds a nice balance of providing short, intense bursts of action - notably the training montage - interspersed within the drama.  Dame's first fight was the most interesting to me, largely for its unpredictability and tension.  The final fight is not the greatest from a purely visceral standpoint, but it incorporates some dream-like elements that effectively convey the personal stakes.  Creed III also gets most of the "side" elements right, such as avoiding Stallone's Rocky altogether; this film is where Donnie and his family needed to stand by themselves.  There are also good parts for Donnie's mother, who has an important role in the plot, and daughter, who shares some sweet scenes with Jordan and really completes the sense of family and symbolizes Donnie's new focus.

The best part of Creed III is its completion of the character's arc, specifically his confrontation with his past in the form of old friend Dame.  While the first film provided glimpses of Donnie's childhood, we get a much fuller picture here, including an extended flashback scene.  It makes clear just how much Donnie has changed - yet believably so - to become the personally- and professionally-successful man he is; and also a vivid, heartbreaking look at a close young friendship cut short.  Jordan and the film's writers do more showing than telling, including when Donnie reunites, awkwardly, with Dame so many years later.  They get the right balance between psychoanalytical and crudely direct and simplistic, either of which it could easily have become.  Jordan is a great actor here again, and he is matched by Majors's Dame.  So much is said by what Dame doesn't say about how he feels about Donnie and the past; his body language and decisions tell you all you need to know.  Bianca also gets a modest yet nice role, in the kind of movie where her part would usually just disappear.  Her relationship with Donnie is subtle and evolved, and her own career has continued to develop.  One of the film's most poignant moments is when she tells Donnie that she has learned to enjoy the good that life has brought her, even though it has fallen short of her dreams.  If Donnie stayed true to this idea, he wouldn't have come out of retirement - but then we wouldn't have a movie!  Still, it was easy for me to suspend my disbelief, and Donnie's conversation with Dame after the fight makes it all worth it.

***

Creed III is the first really good movie of the year I've seen, one that in a way is eight years late.  I should have seen the first Creed in theaters, back in 2015, but didn't.  I skipped the second one, too, since I hadn't seen the first, but I was determined to finally go to the theater for the third one.  So I streamed the first two movies last week (on HBO Max) to prepare for it, and the first one, especially, was so good that I became even more eager to see Creed III.  While the second movie is weaker than the others, it's still enjoyable, so I'd rank the Creed trilogy among the best I've seen.  There are several more movies I'm looking forward to this spring, so keep your eyes peeled for more reviews!  In the mean time, if you haven't seen this one, I highly recommend it (for the best experience, make sure you've seen the other two first).

* By Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer - http://www.impawards.com/2023/creed_iii_ver4.html, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=72052033