Creed II

The uber villain from the Rocky franchises returns. Whoever watched the original Rocky movies will not forget Ivan Drago - also known as Dolph Lundgren in real life with an amazing performance that is literally as 1 dimensional as possible and still or rather because of that is in one of the best Rocky movies made. So it makes sense for him to return here and to reprise his iconic role, training his son to take on Creed.

Dumbing down again (evil as evil can be), he brings gravitas to the movie. Which does not quite reach the heights of the first Creed, but still is quite enjoyable. Especially with all the history contained in the movie. This should be a worthy closure to the Rocky saga - but you never know, do you?

The story arc of every returning character was great and well developed I mean I was kinda expecting Rocky to die but I'm also ok with where he ended up story-wise. "D" Creed developed in the right ways too. He grew in directions he needed to and he struggled and failed in the way he needed to, to win. Also, I've seen a lot of people, complaining about the Dragos and their story in this film. I loved it and personally would love either a stand-alone Drago movie or for them to become more involved in a possible follow up in the growing Creed franchise. Most of the emotion in this film came from the Dragos and they hardly spoke but you could read the story they were writing with their expressions which is beautiful and says a lot of the skill of acting by those two. I thoroughly enjoyed this film, literally everything, the story, the music, the fights, and the acting. I highly recommend this film and am disappointed in my self of how long it took me to watch it but am glad I did.

Adonis Creed is heavyweight champion of the world. To defend his title, he accepts a challenge from someone with a very close connection to Creed: Viktor Drago, the son of Ivan Drago, the man who killed Creed's father Apollo in the ring. Ivan is coaching his son and is determined to win the belt that Rocky took from him. Viktor Drago is unstoppable and Creed's odds against him are slim.

To my surprise, I enjoyed the first Creed movie. I was never a fan of the Rocky movies and I figured Creed was just going to be Rocky rebooted.

Turns out it was better than that. Rather than style over substance it had character depth and good plot development. The characters were engaging and the story was interesting.

Creed II continues in the same vein with an interesting plot and decently drawn characters. Maybe not as engaging as the first movie, but the intrigue of the David vs Goliath battle between Creed and Drago makes up for that.

Like the first Creed, this movie ties in with a Rocky storyline, so once again we have a refreshing of the Rocky story and a handing over to the new Rocky, Creed.

I paid half price to see this, and felt I paid for what I saw. For instance, it's predictable. There was quite a few scenes that did nothing for progressing the movie. I wondered why they moved Adrian's grave to a new location. I wondered why they didn't make Drago's ex wife (Bridgette) walk over to Apollo's wife and say good luck like she did before, only this time she could have told her to fk off? I wondered why Rocky was telling D to not fight Drago when Rocky didn't exactly the same thing to avenge Apollo's death? The movie was dry and soulless. The music could have been inspiring in moments to move you along. Father Drago could have been a lot more human and aggressive than just plain angry and silent. They rushed this movie.

Creed 2 (my personal 3 key points):

*A boxing movie with 10 minutes of boxing+training and 2 hours of talking and deciding things.

*Nearly a copy paste of Rocky 4 and if you thought that that fight was unrealistic, wait for this one.

*When Rocky was fighting in his movies even against a Russian I wholeheartedly wanted him to win because he came from nothing, struggled and had spirit. Adonis acts like boxing is his hobby, I just cant feel for him.

I cant say more without spoiling... But very weak overall