The electric and satisfying "Creed III" proves Sylvester Stallone's long-running boxing-movie franchise is in good hands with Michael B. Jordan, both in front of and behind the camera. In addition to reprising his role as Adonis Creed, Jordan packs his directorial debut with the usual "Rocky" melodrama and bombastic ring entrances while freshening the series with stylish, anime-influenced fights and a new spotlight on deaf representation. The first two "Creed" movies focused on Adonis becoming his own man and, with the help of Stallone's Rocky Balboa, emerging from the shadow of his father, Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers). The threequel finds Adonis reveling in retirement: Instead of getting punched regularly, he enjoys tea parties with his daughter, Amara (Mila Davis-Kent), offers moral support to his music producer wife, Bianca (Tessa Thompson), and promotes the next generation of ring stars. This is a "Creed" movie - and by extension a "Rocky" movie, though it's the first without Stallone in it at all - so several years of ring rust is nothing a little hardcore training and pulling a small plane can't fix. (In case you're wondering, these films are still undefeated when it comes to rousing montages.) Like the best chapters of the franchise, this new narrative knows when to go over the top and when to stay grounded. And with the help of his wife and deaf daughter - who showcases a little of the Creed family spirit - Adonis needs to learn how to figure stuff out with his words as well as his fists. Despite a screenplay that has a tendency to spell everything out - this is the sort of movie in which somebody announces early on that a particular very specific tragic thing is most definitely NOT going to happen, which means it will absolutely happen - Jordan keeps things moving along nicely, and gets fine work from the actors, particularly Majors, whose Dame has a poignant, haunted quality. And the boxing scenes are shot with flair; beads of sweat fall like snowflakes, and slow-motion techniques let us see skin wrinkling in pain upon contact with glove. I watched wishing Rocky Balboa would come wandering in to say something randomly philosophical - the film could have used the off the-wall jolt he would bring - but alas, Sylvester Stallone elected to sit this one out. You can see clearly in the final scenes where "Creed IV" might be headed; you can also see that Jordan as a director shows promise well beyond this film. "Creed III" works as well as it needs to, and for the umpteenth film in a franchise, that's more than enough.
Review of Creed III
