CREED III: A HARD FOUGHT VICTORY FOR MICHAEL B. JORDAN

Creed III is a 2023 American Sports Drama Film directed, produced by and starring Michael B. Jordan (in his directorial debut) from a screenplay written by Keenan Coogler and Zach Baylin. The movie is the third in the Creed film series, and the ninth overall in the Rocky film series. It also stars Tessa Thompson, Jonathan Majors, Wood Harris, Mila Davis-Kent, Florian Munteanu and Phylicia Rashad. In the film, the highly decorated and recently retired boxer Adonis Creed (played by Jordan) comes face-to-face with his childhood friend and former boxing prodigy Damian Anderson (played by Majors).

Creed III premiered in Mexico City on February 9, 2023 before being theatrically released in the United States on March 3 as the first film distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer after its acquisition by Amazon. The film has grossed over $271 million worldwide, making it the sixth-highest grossing film of 2023. It currently has an 89% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with an Audience Score of 96%, and it has a Metascore of 73, with a 7/10 on IMDB (with over 49,000 ratings).

I’ll admit, this film doesn’t quite belong at the top of the list of Rocky movies (and yes, this is a Rocky movie, even though it’s the first to exclude Stallone), but it’s far from the worst movie in the franchise, and by delivering pretty much what we as an audience expected to see in a Rocky movie, Michael B. Jordan comes out a winner here.

I thought the story here was well crafted, though I thought there were a few minor issues with pacing. The dialogue, for the most part felt fluid and honest, and I liked the cameos by characters from “Donnie’s” past. The writers also managed to make Damian a grounded, sympathetic “villain” by complicating his past with Donnie to the point where his actions upon the two becoming reacquainted are understandable. I also think that, as Amara, Donnie and Bianca’s daughter gets older, she helps to center Donnie’s character, in the way that Rocky did in the first two Creed films, though I wish they had at least mentioned Rocky and where he might have been during this film. Overall, I think the writers did a great job at portraying the Creed family dynamic, which more than adequately provided the heartwarming element to this story.

This film also felt like it could be the last of the Creed films, or at least the last one focusing on Michael B. Jordan as Adonis Creed “The Boxer”, which in my mind would make another Creed film pointless. When it comes to movies, I typically think that three is the magic number, so while I would like to think that this will be the last Creed movie (with this now being essentially the ninth film in this series), but knowing Hollywood they’ll just find a way to refocus this thing in a couple of years and keep the gravy train chugging right along the track. In fact, without spoiling the ending, the writers seemed to have already found a way to continue telling this story whether we like it or not.

The acting in the film was solid, especially from the stars of the film, and the camera work was good, with Jordan being especially creative with his choice of shots during the boxing matches. In the final fight, when Adonis fought Damien I think Jordan got a little too cute at times, but other than that I think he did a commendable job in his directorial debut. All things considered, the movie was enjoyable, definitely worth the price of a ticket, and I think, worth a buy on Blu-ray or at least a re-watch once it becomes free to access on cable and streaming services.

Creed III is still in theaters, but it can also be watched (starting at $19.99) on Vudu, Google Play Movies, Amazon Prime Video and YouTube as well as Cable On-Demand.