Creed III Review: Less Than a Knock-Out

Steven Caple Jr.’s Creed II doesn’t share the formal brio and granular view of community of Ryan Coogler’s Creed. Its focus on legacy is also notably more regressive, rehashing a grudge from Rocky IV in a hollow bit of fan service rather than expanding on the character of Adonis “Donnie” Creed’s (Michael B. Jordan) in any meaningful way.

With Jordan at the helm of Creed III, which also happens to be the first Rocky-related film in which Sylvester Stallone doesn’t appear, a course correction is clearly afoot. The spotlight is entirely on Donnie, and rather than harkening back to the battles of past Rocky films, Jordan and screenwriters Keegan Coogler and Zach Baylin plumb the ghosts of Donnie’s childhood and the consequences of his refusal to confront them even as they stare him square in the face.

For Donnie, old wounds are reopened when Damien “Dame” Anderson (Jonathan Majors), an old friend and former boxing prodigy, shows up at the champ’s gym after an 18-year stint in prison. It’s clear from the jump that Donnie was involved in the incident that led to Dame’s weapons charge and made no effort to reach out to his friend once he was incarcerated. Dame’s arrival comes not long after Donnie settled into his post-retirement life coaching the newest WBA champion, Felix Chavez (José Benavidez), and moved into posh new digs in Beverly Hills, so the contrast between how the two men’s lives have turned out couldn’t be more pronounced.

There’s a palpable tension between the Donnie and Dame from the moment that they see one another. Donnie discovers Dame casually leaning against the former’s car, his gym bag sitting on the hood. It appears to be a power move, but there’s a discomfiting ambiguity about where things actually stand between the two men throughout the film’s opening act. Even upon recognizing Dame as a friend rather than someone looking for a fight, there’s an uneasiness in Donnie’s voice and an apprehensiveness in his body language. The unresolved emotions of both men drive the narrative, and the scenes where Donnie and Dame go to battle with one another outside the ring are far more intriguing than anything that plays out within it.

Jordan and Majors are at the top of their games in Creed III. Their ability to subtly convey decades of pent-up anger and regret—along with still-lingering feelings of camaraderie—with a quick glance, gesture, or vocal inflection gives us a real sense of a shared, and troubled, history. But while the encounters between Donnie and Dame are consistently charged with emotional tension, the two actors primarily leave both the vitriol and affection bubbling beneath the surface, barely contained by their intensely stoic demeanors.

But for as stellar as the two lead actors are, Creed III is a structural mishmash. Even at nearly two hours, it repeatedly rushes to the most climactic scenes, jumping ahead to crucial boxing matches with barely any buildup, only serving to highlight how incredibly unrealistic, even absurd, those particular matches are in the first place. Creed emphasized the endless grind of training and the necessity of constant practice in gradually climbing to the peak of the sport. Creed III, on the other hand, is so hyper-focused, and to the point of tunnel vision, on the burgeoning rivalry between Donnie and Dame that it doesn’t bother with filling in the narrative connective tissue needed to make an ex-con with no professional boxing experience getting a title fight within months of his release seem remotely within the realm of possibility.

This would be more forgivable if the rest of the story felt more fleshed out. For one, Bianca (Tessa Thompson) is again reduced to being the loyal, supportive partner to Donnie. Her disappointment over her hearing issues, which has forced her into primarily producing music for other artists rather than singing her own songs since she can no longer perform live, creeps up in a few scenes but is eventually left dangling as Donnie’s intensifying drama with Dame takes over the film. The same goes for the depiction of Bianca and Donnie’s deaf daughter, Amara (Mila Davis-Kent), and her struggles to fit in at her new school, as well as the recovery of Donnie’s mother, Mary-Anne (Phylicia Rashad), from a recent stroke.

Creed III’s individual story beats are interesting, especially the focus on Donnie’s loyalty being tested when Dame shows signs of being a dirty fighter, but the filmmakers too often pivot to the media-driven hype cycles that surround the big fights. Recurring flashbacks fill us in on what exactly played out between Donnie and Dame in the past, and before you know it, the film has taken a potent drama about two men dealing shared trauma, and who’ve drifted apart as a result, and sapped it of the sociopolitical context that made it so compelling. Which is to say that Creed III comes down to a draw between its flashes of brilliance and its missed opportunities.