Boxing has always been good fodder for filmmakers. The sport plays to the strengths of the form, offering compelling characters, clear conflict, and visceral violence. None did it better than Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull and Rocky, the 1976 Best Picture winner directed by John G. Avildsen, but forever associated with its writer and star, Sylvester Stallone. They are both working-class stories about driven men overcoming long odds, but they have very different takes on what being a sports hero really means. For Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull, the championship is an empty prize. For Rocky, the search for glory becomes less important than personal integrity.
In 2015, Ryan Coogler rebooted the Rocky story with Michael B. Jordan starring as Adonis “Donnie” Creed, the son of Stallone’s frenemy, Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers). The Black Panther helmer is one of the greatest genre directors of our age, and his skills fit perfectly with the needs of the boxing picture. For Creed III, Jordan followed in the footsteps of Stallone by directing the film he’s starring in. And whaddaya know, the guy’s got chops!
The film begins in flashback, where a 15-year-old Donnie (played by Thaddeus J. Mixson) sneaks out of his mom’s house to go to a Golden Gloves boxing match with his buddy Damian “Dame” Anderson (Spence Moore II). Dame wins big, but while they’re on their way home, Donnie gets into an altercation in front of a package store. Dame pulls a gun to get his friend out of trouble, but he’s the one who gets busted when the cops show up.
Fifteen years later, Donnie is fighting to unify the heavyweight championship. He retires a champ and is settling in with his wife Bianca (Tessa Thompson) and daughter Amara (Mila Davis-Kent), when he gets a visit from an old friend. Dame, now played by Jonathan Majors, is out of prison and wants to get back into the fight game. After all this time, he thinks he’s still got “a little gas left in the tank.” Donnie feels more than a little guilty that it was Dame who paid the price when he started the fight all those years ago, so he offers to help train him at his appropriately Greek-branded Delphi Gym.
Dame’s got a lot of aggression to work out, but he’s a ferocious fighter. Donnie, who is trying his hand as a manager, is trying to arrange a title bout for his protégé, Felix Chavez (José Benavidez Jr., an actual professional boxer.). When his would-be opponent is mysteriously assaulted at a party, Donnie recommends Chavez fight Dame instead. After all, it was great publicity when Apollo Creed gave Rocky a title fight. “Everybody loves an underdog.” But Donnie’s plan backfires, and you better believe that the two former friends are headed for a final showdown in the ring.
During his press junket for Creed, Jordan has talked a lot about how his anime obsession shaped the way he approached his first outing as director. You can see it in his bold compositions, particularly in the fight scenes. The first match plays out in sweeping Steadicam close-ups that are more Scorsese than Watanabe. But during the final showdown in Dodger Stadium, the fans melt away, and the two titans slug it out like gundams. Cinematographer Kramer Morgenthau shoots the fights in a high frame rate, allowing Jordan and editor Tyler Nelson to speed up and slow down the action as needed.
Jordan’s performance is fearless. The key to the Rocky stories has always been just the right combination of strength and vulnerability. Jordan is not afraid to cry in an extended double close-up with Tessa Thompson or wear a frog onesie to a tea party with his hearing-impaired daughter. Majors is a perfect foil to Jordan, delivering a nuanced performance that, like Jordan in Black Panther, is not, strictly speaking, villainous. Creed III can go toe-to-toe with the heaviest hitters of boxing cinema.
Creed III
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