Creed II Review

That would be "Creed 2," not "Creed 11," since the Rocky franchise uses roman numerals with their sequels. Although we're not too far away from the 11th movie in this franchise as "Creed II" is the eighth movie in a franchise that I've thoroughly enjoyed. In fact, the Rocky movies are some of my Dad's favorites, so I have some amazing memories growing up watching the Rocky movies with my Dad and other siblings. "Rocky" is a classic. "Rocky II" is just as good, if not better. "Rocky III" is super cheesy, but a lot of fun. "Rocky IV" packs in some heavy emotion. I haven't actually seen "Rocky V." We didn't watch it growing up because it was PG-13 instead of PG. I've always heard it wasn't worth it anyways, so I've never bothered. "Rocky Balboa" as the sixth film is surprisingly emotional and extremely underrated. So yeah, a solid series. I wasn't sure what to expect with "Creed," but was mostly excited to see Rocky back again. Yet I was shocked to discover it was one of the best ones in the franchise, up there with "Rocky" and "Rocky II." With how successful it was across the board, I knew it meant that a "Creed II" was on our way and I was ready to welcome it with open arms. Now that it's here, I'm delighted to report that this is another solid entry in this franchise.

In regards to the plot of the film, there's not a whole you can do when you're on the eighth movie in a boxing franchise, yet somehow "Creed II" managed to strike gold with its premise, tying it directly into "Rocky IV." As a recap, "Rocky IV" is the movie where Dolph Lundgreen's Ivan Drago kills Apollo Creed, Rocky's opponent in the first two movies and friend in the third movie, in a boxing match at the beginning of the film. Rocky then has to train hard to get revenge against Drago, which he does at the end of the film. "Creed" is a movie that follows the emergence of Adonis Creed, son of Apollo Creed, as he tries to emerge out of the shadow of his legendary father to create his own legacy. With Adonis having grabbed the attention of the world at the end of "Creed," it felt like the natural progression of things to bring Ivan Drago back into the picture for "Creed II." Of course Ivan Drago is too old to fight on his own in this movie, but he has his son Victor Drago trained and ready to beat Adonis, bringing glory back to the Drago name after Rocky humiliated Ivan years later. So the moment Adonis is declared world champion, the Dragos come out of the woodwork to challenge him to a fight. Victor vs. Adonis. Drago vs. Creed. Now Adonis needs to make up his mind in regards to what to do.

What made "Creed" such a good movie is that it perfectly followed the formula of "Rocky" by being a character piece first and foremost. It was much more than just another boxing movie with fun boxing matches. The fact that "Creed II" also follows that format is why it's also successful in my eyes. Of course the easy answer in this is for Adonis to fight Victor and send the Dragos back to the shadows. But when you dive beneath the surface, this is a lot more complex than that. First of all, Victor is a lot bigger than Adonis, which means Adonis has to figure out a way to fight smart because he's not going to win by brute strength. If he runs into the ring with his emotions getting the better of him because the Dragos are the reason why he never knew his father, the match isn't going to turn out so well for him. Then there's the obvious fact that Adonis' father was killed in a very similar match, adding some real stakes to this. Topping it all off, Adonis is now in a relationship with Bianca, his girlfriend turned fiancee in this movie, and she is pregnant with their child. Yes, he can avenge his father's death, but in doing so, he risks doing to his young family what his father did to his. Leave them without a husband and father. So as you can imagine, the emotions are running strong in this one with all parties involved.

Powering this movie forward are a whole string of brilliant performances, lead once again by Michael B. Jordan as Adonis Creed. Jordan has been on the scene for quite some time now with roles in the "Friday Night Lights" TV series and "Chronicle" in 2012 being some early examples. But "Fruitvale Station" in 2013 is where he really grabbed a lot of people's attention, which most certainly led to him being cast in the lead role in "Creed," given that both movies were directed by Ryan Coogler. And well, pun very much intended, but he delivered a knock-out performance in "Creed," one that should've given him an Oscar nomination. This year he's made an even bigger name for himself as gave what some have called a performance for the ages as he starred as Erik Killmonger in "Black Panther," a performance that could give him his first Oscar nomination depending on how much the Oscars love "Black Panther" this year. So yeah, the guy can definitely act. And he once again gives his all to this role, making me believe that he's a prolific boxer who deserves his spot next to Rocky Balboa in this franchise. When the movie did the sports movie trope of showing the Sports Center guys, I bought into the idea that I was legitimately watching Sports Center rather than it feeling forced.

Of course there's a lot of great supporting actors holding Michael B. Jordan up so that he's not carrying this movie by himself. The most obvious one here is Sylvester Stallone returning as Rocky, which is always good to see. In "Creed," Stallone gave potentially his best performance yet as the iconic character, which still makes me mad that the Oscars gave the best supporting actor award to Mark Rylance instead, despite Stallone practically sweeping the rest of the awards season in that category. In "Creed II," Stallone's role isn't quite as emotionally heavy, thus on Oscar nomination is probably not on his way and I'm fine with that. But he still owns it as this character. It's been 40 years since he first stepped into this role and it was once again great to see this legacy of his continue. Surprisingly, though, if there was one actor in this movie who deserves a supporting actor nomination, I would contend it's Dolph Lundgreen as Ivan Drago. He was one of Rocky's most cold-hearted opponents and you want to hate him, but they give him a ton of depth in this movie that actually causes you to feel for the guy. You kinda want his son to go get the win because of it, which makes this a very conflicted fight even though Victor still acts like a stuck-up jerk.

I think the movie's biggest flaw is that Ryan Coogler's absence is very much felt. My guess is that he was too distracted with his "Black Panther" movie to come direct "Creed II," so they tapped Steven Caple Jr. to direct the movie. I'm not sure where or how they found this guy since the only other feature-length film he's directed is a 2016 movie called "The Land," which only had a max of 13 theaters, making $43,756 overall at the domestic box office. And I suppose Caple Jr. does a competent job. He proved to me that he was worthy of directing the movie. But the movie as a whole is just not as sharp as "Creed." It's a bit rough around the edges and takes a long time to get going. I feel if Coogler had returned, he could've smoothed things out quite a bit and made for a more enjoyable ride. The other big flaw I had was with the soundtrack. It was a very hip-hop heavy soundtrack. And I get it. It's a product of its time. I bought into the idea that Creed himself would probably be listening to this type of music. So it fit. It's just that hip-hop doesn't motivate me personally, so when the training montages used hip-hop to pump me up, I wasn't very pumped up. However, when the traditional Rocky soundtrack shows up, I think I squealed a bit in my seat. That's one of my all-time favorite movie soundtracks.

That said, the movie as a whole was still very enjoyable. Did it do anything particularly new? No. But in this case I don't think it needed to. Since I watched this the day after Thanksgiving, the comparison that I thought off was a Thanksgiving dinner. When I sit down for a Thanksgiving dinner, which is one of my favorite meals of the year, I don't need something new or different. In fact, I need my turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes on my plate or I'm going to feel underwhelmed. It's the same thing with a Rocky movie. I need the drama at the beginning to set up an end fight. I need the main character to fall a bit. I need him to find the motivation to fight. I need an epic training montage. I need an epic final battle with the classic soundtrack thrown somewhere in there. If the movie went away from any of that, I would be disappointed. So yeah, I knew exactly where this movie was going and I wasn't surprised by the final result, but that's what made me so happy. It included all the elements that I wanted. But not just that, it handled those elements with care and precision to deliver a well-crafted Rocky movie. There is a lot more specific details that I could dive into, but for now I'll let you discover those on your own. "Creed II" is a worthy successor and I'm going to give it an 8/10.