Creed III

Life imitates art as Creed actor Michael B. Jordan follows original series star Sylvester Stallone into the director's chair.  Jordan has put together a thoughtful career path and proves to be a natural storyteller in this next chapter of Adonnis Creed's story, scripted by Keenan Coogler (brother of original Creed director Ryan, who has co-written several of his brother projects including Black Panther) and Zach Baylin writer of the excellent film King Richard), that plumbs into Donnie's past to find his next challenge.

Spoilers below:

I expected the film to start as Rocky III did, with Creed as champion and on top of the world.  Jordan and the writers instead start the film with a flashback to Donnie's youth where we meet Damian who is a Golden Glove boxer.  Interestingly Donnie is already living with his father's widow Mary Anne at this stage but sneaks out to watch Damian fight.  As I still think of the stern Clair Huxtable every time I first see Phylicia Rashad turn up in these films I feared more for her catching Donnie than anything else that might happen to him.  

The events of that night plays out over the course of the movie as a mystery but I had a pretty good sense of what had happened from the outset though I expected Damian might have killed the old guard.  Donnie and Damian's actions are wrong but in a way call attention to an ongoing problem in juvenile halls.  Then the film moves forward to Donnie's final fight as champion in which he wins a rematch against the first film's opponent Ricky Conlon, (Tony Bellow making a fun cameo).  Afterwards the film jumps forward several years with Donnie and Bianca (Tessa Thompson) both working to manage up and comers in their respective careers.  This gives both characters a symbiosis as they have moved out of the limelight while simultaneously providing a reason for Bianca to still be able to hear.  The time jump also allows Bianca and Donnie's daughter to now be about 7.  Amara is played by hearing impaired actress Mila Davis Kent who has such spirit and presence here that I hope she goes on to have a long career.  The film spends plenty of time with the Creed family and both Jordan and Thompson seem perfectly natural using ASL (to my admittedly untrained eye).  The Creeds enjoy an upscale lifestyle with the only real challenge being the handling of Mary Ann's illness.  

Into this comes Damian, now out of jail after serving time defending Donnie for the incident Donnie got away for.  Damian is played by Jonathan Majors in his second appearance as an antagonist in a third entry of a spin off series of 2023.  Majors plays Damian (whose name alone says a lot about how trustworthy he is..aka Lyustifer Safin in No Time To Die) as tenacious and determined to get his belated shot as a boxer and happy to exploit Donnie's connections to get there using dirty tricks.  Donnie realizes he has let a snake into the garden and comes out of retirement to take on Damian in a climactic fight.  

This story is pretty straightforward on the surface but Jordan's directorial touches and Majors' complex performance give the film a lot of color.  Damian is a little awkward and as an ex-con is a out of place in Donnie's world. Damian has probably had to learn a lot of tricks to survive in prison which are off putting in society.   He has an unorthodox fighting style in which he seems to swoop down on his opponents and overwhelm them and raise and lower his hands together.  Jordan uses some anime influences in the boxing scenes, starting with Donnie's fight against Conlon, in which he is able to identify weaknesses to turn the tables on his opponent. 

The film also explores the idea that Donnie had his success in part at Damian's expense since Donnie started the fight with the guard and Damian went to jail in trying to help him.  Donnie has some guilt and Damian has spent the time in jail resentful of Donnie's success but also needing his help.  But the key thing is while Donnie made a mistake, Damian in offering a solution took things much too far in drawing a weapon and he continues that approach when he gets out.  

There is a key moment at the end of the fight after Damian defeats Chavez where Damian looks to share his triumph with Donnie but Donnie's reaction is anger for the tactics used.  This leads to the scene on the beach with a production design in scene on the beach gives a sense of Donnie has entered Hell with the large bonfire and confronting a man named Damian. 

The posters for the film show Donnie and Damian sitting their corners looking nearly identical.  The well edited training sequences build on this by having both men look into mirrors at opposite angles.  At points during the montage during the quickly edited moments I could not which man was which.  I enjoyed seeing Donnie train with Viktor Drago though an argument could be made for Donnie to set up Viktor for the fight instead of the other way around since Viktor was the one cheated out of it in the first place.  

One of Jordan's most memorable moves as a director comes with how he approaches the middle part of the big fight.  In the other Rocky/Creed films that section of the fight is usually shown as a montage  but Jordan presents it as a surrealistic single round with only Donnie and Damian fighting without the crowd, condensing the action and emphasizing how personal this is.  The fight is fairly even with Damian as the more powerful fighter but ultimately Donnie's experience and ability to exploit Damian's weak defense (when his arms are together only one part of his body is protected leaving the others open to attack) Donnie wins the title back.  

The well paced film concludes with two slower scenes.  First Donnie take a moment to speak with Damian (with a partial wall placed between them until they make contact) and acknowledges his responsibility and fault for abandoning Damian, allowing for a healing to begin.  This is consistent with Donnie's now friendship with Viktor Drago, and it makes sense for these fighters to bond over their shared unique experiences.  Jordon concludes the film with a scene of Donnie and his family in the ring.  Donnie could not have done this without their support and a small stage is set for Amara to follow in her father's footsteps.

Notably Rocky is not in this film.  After production ended on Creed II Sylvester Stallone released an Instagram video saying goodbye to the role.  Additionally Rocky had a touching reunion with his family at the end of Creed II which seemed to close out his story.  By this point the Creed films do not need Rocky but I certainly missed him during some of the late second act scenes where Donnie needed some guidance.  Rocky's absence would be less jarring if Duke Evers were a more effective character but the films have never established him as anywhere near as insightful as his father or even that close to Donnie.  He's just a functional character 

Mary Anne's death is touching though predictable, just as Mickey's was in Rocky III.  Prior to that we see Mary Anne tried to protect Donnie from his past by keeping Damian's letters from him, which makes sense since she was trying to give him a clean slate although it was unfair to Damian.  Donnie  professes bitterness that he was ignored by Mary Anne's other two kids.  Donnie would have been much younger so they might have been out of the house by the time Mary Anne adopted Donnie but they also might have been uncomfortable around him since he was evidence of their late father's infidelity which would cloud their feelings for him.  We never see the kids at Mary Anne's funeral which means they either never showed up (which seems unlikely) or since Donnie is not talking to them, the film keeps them offscreen.  Either way their absence feels a little inappropriate.  A look between Donnie and one or both of them could have accomplished a lot.

 Overall I really liked Creed III both for Major's performance and Jordan's work behind the camera.  I expect the series will continue in some way or another but either way I hope Jordan gets to direct more films after his work here.  ***