Creed II

By: Ashlee Dell

We had the opportunity to attend the Creed II world premiere in New York City and from someone from a later generation who grew up having to watch the series and reruns, my dad was living vicariously through me. I must say, the next installment of Creed, the Rocky franchise spinoff, is (excuse me for the pun) a knockout.

If you’ve never seen the first, the spinoff centers on Adonis ‘Donnie’ Creed, the son of Apollo Creed of the six other Rocky films. The first Creed film led up to the fight between Donnie Johnson (Michael B. Jordan) and ‘Pretty’ Ricky Conlan (Tony Bellew) after Donnie finally accepted to use the Creed name. While Donnie put up a good fight with Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) as his trainer, he lost the battle but gained the respect of Conlan and boxing fans. The film, of course, ended with Donnie and a recovering Rocky Balbo climbing the steps in Philadelphia as an ode to the original.

Creed II begins unexpectedly with dreary opening shots in Kiev, Ukraine of none other than Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren), the Soviet giant whom Rocky fought and won against in Rocky IV and his son, Viktor Drago (Florian ‘Big Nasty’ Munteanu). On the other side of the country, the film picks up with action right away as Adonis (Michael B. Jordan) is seconds away from having his shot at the World Heavyweight Championship title with his girlfriend Bianca (Tessa Thompson) right by his side. After a big punch, and what was shown in the trailer, you can probably imagine what happens next. Now at the top of the boxing world, Donnie is building a name for himself aside from whom he had as a father. And he goes out and does just that.

With the world now knowing who Adonis is, some familiar faces reappear: Ivan and Viktor Drago. Viktor, who has been training harder than a Navy SEAL, challenges Donnie to a fight. Being that Viktor’s father is the reason Adonis’s father, Apollo Creed, died, it’s an opportunity to which Adonis can’t say no. Rocky obviously urges against it and is clearly still facing his own demons and feeling at fault for what happened to his best friend.

With his new title comes some new responsibilities and challenges. Donnie proposes to Bianca and quickly finds out after the fight that there’s also a baby on the way. That’s what makes the stakes of the Drago situation even higher.  After Viktor’s father killed his dad, along with Rocky and Apollo’s wife Mary Anne (Phylicia Rashad) hard push against it, there’s no way he’d take the fight, right? You can probably guess from past films that Adonis goes for it anyway. However, a now-healing Rocky wants nothing to do with it. In an emotional scene, he reminds us that he didn’t “throw in the towel” for Apollo and he’s not going to make that mistake again. He continues working at Adrian’s while Adonis moves to LA and trains at a gym with is father’s namesake.

Adonis may be at the top of the world in more ways than just his fighting. But just like Rocky, he is also facing his own demons. He proved he could be held to a high regard in the boxing world, but what is he fighting for now? It takes him the course of the film to figure that out.

A few years ago, when you watched the trailer for the first installment of Creed, you may have thought to yourself that it thought it looked good, but also thought it would never be anywhere near comparable to the Rocky franchise. Creed II was a defining point for the series to prove whether it could move on as a spinoff or fail like the countless others in the past.

Like the other Rocky films, Creed II continues to balance action, comedy and drama with the deep focus on family. With that being said, the first Creed did deliver more heartbreaking scenes. After some incredibly emotional scenes in the first installment – like those tied to Rocky’s cancer and the tear-jerking line Jordan give, “That I’m not a mistake” when Rocky asks what he’s trying to prove by fighting – we could expect Creed II to be similarly emotional. It does come across as a bit too sentimental though but given the circumstances with the Drago storyline it’s understandable.

Michael B. Jordan continues to shine throughout the film, especially over Adonis’s journey back to health after being pushed to limits we never expected. It would not be a surprise if Jordan and Sylvester Stallone were in contention for awards for lead and supporting roles respectively.

After Ryan Coogler’s phenomenal directing of the first Creed and Black Panther as well, (which obviously deserves the recognition at every moment possible) it was a let-down that he was only a producer on the film. However, Steven Caple Jr. direction of Creed II is also fantastic. Given it’s a Rocky film, you can already anticipate that the training montages are inevitable, but they do get more creative. And so do the cameos!

The film also shines at delivering just the right number of subplots. Not only is there the father and son drama aspect, but also the grief of both Rocky and Adonis, to Adonis and Bianca’s child and the uncertainty of her hearing. There are also several sentimental surprises throughout for Rocky fans, with one surprise including a short and sweet scene of a Balboa son at the end of the film (that is almost just as tear-jerking as the show the actor that plays him stars in).

Creed II is the eighth film of the Rocky saga and is both a sequel and a spinoff that keeps the spirit of these fan favorite films alive–while gaining momentum as a Creed franchise should it continue.

Creed II opens on Thanksgiving Day – A-