Creed III

A strong entry into Rocky franchise that encapsulates the boxing world both in and outside of the ring.

Adonis Creed is a retired boxer working as a promoter. Creed III explores his new life, post retirement and what it means for him and his family. An old 'brother like' friend from Creed's past, Damian Anderson played by Jonathon Majors, comes back into his life which sets off a series of events. We get to witness Creed's post boxing story whilst also witnessing Damien's much delayed boxing story.

The film was built up really well especially in the first half where it takes its time to introduce us to the characters, plot and theme of the movie. Despite being two hours long, it's clear that a lot of the movie got chopped as the second half was rushed which is a shame as the film could have given us so much more prior to the Main Event.

Johnathan Majors was fantastic. His character had menace, pain and emotion. What's great is that the relationship between Creed and Anderson was morally grey so you could empathise with both sides of the story which make the movie more heartfelt. Michael B Jordon was solid in his role as Creed as per usual and the supporting casts of actors and boxing personalities both new and old were a lot of fun.

The choreography which was influenced by MBJ's love of anime, was good despite some of the usual big screen over exaggeration and the soundtrack was fire opening up with The Watcher from from Dr Dre's 2001! Those hoping to see Rocky on screen shouldn't hold their breathe.

This is a real departure from other movies in the Rocky-verse. The absence of Stallone's input (ignore the 'produced by' credit to Stallone - he wasn't involved) is felt throughout the films style, writing, direction and lack of any sentimentality.

It simply doesn't feel like a Rocky/Creed movie, it's darker, more angry, more miserable and a lot less fun. But worst of all you just don't care about any of the characters...and that means no hairs on the back of your neck as you approach fight night.

On the fight, the way it was shot is very stylistic with heavy CGI and feels further removed from reality than the other movies (and hey - they weren't realistic!).

If you forget it's Creed or part of the Rocky-verse, on its own it's an 'ok' film. Stack it up against what's been before and after what was a really entertaining first and second Creed instalment/s - it's a bad movie.

Hopefully that's it now, unless Stallone gets back involved...then maybe.

Wanted to like this film and to be honest i think it was a good idea to finally move away from the Rocky character- but this falls flat on its face.

The premise is good and it starts off okay but it becomes really muddled really fast. If Adonis and Dame are literally like brothers why do they have next to no chemistry? Do we root for Dame or is he just the antagonist? In all seriousness Rocky V was poor but it actually did this storyline so much better.

Training sequences and the fights were the worst across all the Rocky/Creed series- yes visually they look great but there is no feel of a boxing match, no flow, no heart pounding sense of threat or danger. The less said about the CGI sequence the better- completely deflated the climax of the fight and robbed us of any investment we had left.

If there is going to be a Creed IV, Stallone needs to have a greater involvement. Yes you can call the previous Rocky/Creed films generic and predictable but they're also crowd-pleasing and above all fun and entertaining - and at the end of the day thats what it comes down to.

After watching Creed 3, it became clear to me that the makers of this film recycled WAY too much Rocky material without actually involving Rocky at all and simultaneously claiming to stand on its own.

The retired protagonist takes a new-comer under his wing and ends up having to fight him in the finale. Seems familiar, right? That's entirely Rocky 5.

At one point, Adonis says "it ain't about how hard you hit..."... Yup, Rocky 6 (Rocky Balboa)

Adonis training for the fight by running up the hill and yelling Damien's name as he reaches the top. Yup, Rocky did that in Russia in Rocky 4.

Adonis' former rival (Drago's son) is now helping to train him for his next fight. Yup, that's Rocky 3.

A loved one of the protagonist (Adonis' mom) has to die in order to build emotional weight to the character's journey... Yup, that's Rocky 3, 4, & Rocky Balboa.

I can forgive a minimal amount of rehashing to a certain extent because after all, Creed is a spin-off franchise of Rocky. But they weren't very original with this 3rd installment.

The first half of Creed III was decent and the initial premise of a childhood friend opened up some interesting possibilities for the story. But it sadly wasn't developed well enough and the movie ends up feeling somewhat of a wasted opportunity. By the end, it has the feeling of one of those dime-a-dozen fighting movies that didn't quite hit the mark in any memorable way.

The actors all did a good job however, and I didn't really notice that Rocky wasn't around. It was almost refreshing to see Creed and the other characters take their first independent steps, without the guiding hand or strong presence of Stallone. Things felt promising early on in the movie and it was probably the good acting which prevented the movie from being a complete flop.

Around the half way point unfortunately cracks started to appear in the story. The childhood friend angle just wasn't used to best effect, in a convincing way. Things just descend into a series of somewhat unrealistic and almost cliched interactions between the main characters. The story sort of dwindles into mediocrity.

Overall still reasonably entertaining. Good acting, decent directing/cinematography. Fight scenes not bad. Ultimately a weak screenplay turned what could have been a good Creed movie into the least impressive one so far in the franchise.