Mark Reviews Movies: CREED III

Creed III, Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures

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Review by Mark Dujsik | March 1, 2023

It's time for the continuing story of Adonis "Donnie" Creed (Michael B. Jordan) and nothing else in Creed III. The first two films gradually moved the narrative in that direction, as the young boxer rose to the heightas of the father he never knew and fought an almost predetermined battle with the son of the man who killed that father in the ring. Those stories were inexorably connected to the history of the boxer who would become Adonis' coach, friend, and surrogate uncle, but Sylvester Stallone's Rocky Balboa is nowhere to be seen or even heard from in this sequel (The actor serves as a producer here instead). That was inevitable, too.

No, this movie, written by Keenan Coogler and Zach Baylin, is about Adonis, his family, his career and legacy, and his past—not the past of his father Apollo and Rocky and anything or anyone connected to those stories—coming back to haunt him. The character deserves it. He always has, because the first film and Jordan made Adonis such a complicated and deeply conflicted figure. As nice as it has been to see what Rocky has been up to in the ensuing decades and as moving as it was to witness the relationship between these two men develop, this series needed to move out of the shadow of the past of the larger franchise if it was going to do anything different.

With this third movie, the hope is that this particular series will find better footing if it does continue. Given the series from which this one was spun off, these movies could have multiple sequels, several decades, and, if the way a character of the next generation is presented here is any indication, maybe a spin-off franchise of its own to figure out all of that.

Meanwhile, this installment starts strongly and unexpectedly. We get a brief flash of Adonis' childhood, before he was adopted by Mary-Anne Creed (Phylicia Rashad) and while he was living in a group home for orphaned children, and his friendship with an older boy who dreams of becoming a boxer. Soon enough, we're slightly less in the past, as Adonis becomes the undisputed champion of boxing in his final bout, and then, we're in the present day, with Adonis living a retired life running a gym, managing the current heavyweight champ, wearing and modeling suits, and making time for his wife Bianca (Tessa Thompson) and their daughter Amara (Mila Davis-Kent).

The whole setup makes it clear: Adonis is his own man now. It's fascinating and appropriate that Jordan, who remains equally charismatic and vulnerable in this role, chose this movie to be his directorial debut, considering that Adonis almost feels like a supporting player to the boxing side of this story and that it's about the character moving forward in his life and career. As a filmmaker, the actor shows some anticipated strengths, such as the way he allows the actors and their performances room to breathe in even the most plot-heavy scenes, and some unexpected ones, especially when it comes to the portrayal of the climactic boxing match.

Of course, there's nothing unexpected about this movie ending with a title bout involving Adonis, and that's why this movie ultimately feels like more of a disappointment than a successful follow-up to its predecessors. It spends about an hour convincing us that there is and could be much more to this character than his prowess in the ring, only to rush toward and through a formulaic plot that pits two former friends and current foes against each other.

We're getting ahead of that plot, though, and it's most refreshing how a boxing match as a climax doesn't seem to be the likely end of this story as it initially progresses. We get to see Adonis in his new element: being a loving and supportive husband, the doting father to a girl with a hearing impairment, a caring son to his adoptive mother, and an inspiring and cleverly dealing manager at the gym.

The only wrench in the works of his life doesn't even seem like one once it's introduced. That comes in the person of Damian "Dame" Anderson (Jonathan Majors), the best friend from Adonis' group-home childhood, who has been released from prison after almost two decades. The two reconnect. Adonis wants to help Dame get back on his feet, because he blames himself what happened. Dame, though, only wants one thing: another shot to make it as a professional boxer. If anyone knows something about an underdog story, Adonis knows at least two things: his own story and that of the man to whom his father gave a shot.

Everything about this setup—which, for a while, just feels like the story the movie wants to tell—clicks, because the screenplay allows us to become reacquainted with the characters we know and acquainted with their changed lives, as well as with Majors' charming but secretive Dame. How all of this down-to-earth storytelling transforms into the stuff of simplistic formula, as a character becomes little more than a snarling villain and Adonis must endure a montage to get back into shape for a return to the ring, is almost as irrelevant as it is disappointing. Creed III promises something different, so it's a shame it ends up being more of the same.

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