With the exception of superhero movies, the most bankable (if somewhat derivative) assets for major studios at the moment are legacy sequels and reboots. Sometimes, a movie aspires to function as both a sequel and a reboot: a way to give fans what they want from the franchise’s past while also looking toward its future. The fifth Scream movie, itself a legacy sequel-cum-reboot, even coined a term for this kind of project: the “requel.” The requel craze isn’t inherently good or bad—for every stinker like Ghostbusters: Afterlife, there’s always hope we’ll get a bold swing like The Matrix Resurrections. But among the many requels that have emerged in recent years, 2015’s Creed still deserves to hold the crown—or more appropriately, the championship belt.
Directed and cowritten by Ryan Coogler, Creed channels the underdog spirit of the original Rocky films while introducing a new fighter from a familiar boxing lineage: Adonis Creed (played by Michael B. Jordan), son of the late Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers). In the process, Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky Balboa goes from fighting inside the ring to providing tutelage for Adonis outside of it. The beloved Rocky hallmarks are still present in Creed—the Philly training montage is nothing short of spectacular—even as Adonis looks to build his own legacy separate from the boxing legends of yore.
Take nothing away from Creed, which belongs on a short list of the 21st century’s greatest blockbusters, but the film was never going to step out of Rocky’s shadow completely—least of all when Stallone’s eponymous boxer is still along for the ride. For Creed and its sequel, the past and the present remained intertwined: none other than Ivan Drago’s son served as the main antagonist of Creed II. Again, there’s nothing wrong with legacy sequels using franchise staples to their advantage: While not as good as its predecessor (admittedly a tall order), the Drago-centric Creed II also scored favorable reviews. But in the long term, it’s been hard to shake the feeling that the Creed series would eventually falter if the films remained beholden to what came before them.
In any event, the latest film in the franchise, Creed III, had no choice but to move on from the actual Rocky. Stallone, a longtime critic of Rocky and Creed producer Irwin Winkler, wasn’t pleased with where the new film was headed. (The bad blood stems from the actor lacking ownership over the franchise he helped create.) “It was taken in a direction that is quite different than I would’ve taken it,” Stallone explained to The Hollywood Reporter in November. “It’s a different philosophy.” Perhaps one day we’ll find out what, exactly, compelled Stallone to step away from the series he’s been associated with for nearly 50 years; in the meantime, with his iconic mentor removed from the equation, Creed III is the sternest test yet of Adonis Creed’s appeal.
Creed III begins with Adonis hanging up his gloves after a hard-fought rematch against an old foe from the first film. Having solidified himself as a legend and champion of the sport like his father, Adonis is ready to spend more time with his wife Bianca (Tessa Thompson), a prolific musician who’s made a career transition herself from performing to producing, and their young daughter Amara (Mila Davis-Kent). Naturally, Adonis’s retirement is disrupted by a figure from his past: Damian “Dame” Anderson (Jonathan Majors), a former amateur boxer who’s spent the better part of two decades behind bars for an incident during their adolescence. With his old friend now one of the most famous athletes on the planet, Dame is hoping Adonis can help him kick-start a belated boxing career. In part because of the guilt he still harbors over Dame’s incarceration, Adonis is willing to lend a hand.
Of course, anyone familiar with sports movie clichés (or who simply watched the trailer) already knows that (a) Adonis’s retirement will be short-lived and (b) Dame isn’t just here to take a trip down memory lane. As far as Rocky antecedents go, Dame is essentially a modern spin on Rocky III villain Clubber Lang (Mr. T), who went from a prison stint to challenging the Italian Stallion in the ring. In fact, the similarities are striking enough that it’s not too surprising that introducing Lang’s son as a new antagonist in Creed III was floated by Stallone, with professional boxer Deontay Wilder considered for the role. (That this didn’t happen could explain Stallone exiting the franchise.)
But Dame being a character with no ties to the Rocky universe outside of his connection to Adonis works in the film’s favor. For once, the narrative weight of the story falls entirely on Adonis’s shoulders, and by extension Jordan’s, who makes his directorial debut with Creed III—not unlike Stallone with the first Rocky sequel. And just as Stallone molded the Rocky franchise as he saw fit, Jordan is entitled to put his own stamp on the Creed series, and for the actor, that means channeling his love of anime into a boxing movie.
Adonis and Dame aren’t going to be mistaken for the Dragon Ball Z duo of Goku and Vegeta, but the anime influence is especially pronounced in Creed III’s fight scenes, which frequently utilize slow motion to dramatize the impact of some of the punches. (Somewhere, slo-mo savant Zack Snyder is nodding his head in approval.) But the boldest swing (no pun intended) is saved for the climactic fight, which, in one round, sees Adonis and Dame transported to an empty arena that symbolically carries their shared emotional baggage. It’s a more literal interpretation of battling your demons, and it’s arguably the most defining moment of Jordan’s foray into filmmaking.
Love it or hate it, these qualities are at least pushing the Creed films in a new direction. That is also owed to the casting of Majors, a rising star who imbues Dame with the kind of menace and charm that makes the character irresistible to watch, even as he uses some shady tactics to realize his boxing dream. In many respects, Dame’s journey is a reflection of the path Adonis might’ve taken were it not for Apollo’s widow, Mary Anne (Phylicia Rashad), bringing him into her home when he was a child—and all the wealth and privilege such a life entails. It all leads to a clever inversion of the original Rocky: Adonis, like his father, is an athlete who reached the apex of his sport, while Dame is the scrappy underdog. In other words, Creed III still has the crowd-pleasing hallmarks of a requel—mixing and matching what’s worked in the past to pave a new path forward.
With Jordan already confirming that Adonis’s journey will continue for a fourth film—along with plans to extend the “Creed-verse” via spinoffs—we’ll soon find out how much bloom is still on the rose of the Rocky franchise and its requisite sports movie clichés. (Is it even legal to make one of these films without including a training montage?) But that’s a dilemma for another time: At the moment, Creed III has largely succeeded in stepping out of Rocky’s shadow, and Adonis looks more than ready to go a few more rounds before hanging up the gloves for good. Just like his predecessor, Adonis isn’t going down without a fight.
Miles Surrey
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