The most inventive thing about Creed II is the entrance of Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan) into the arena for the film’s climactic bout. The stadium goes dark, a dot of light circles the space until it stops above the entrance corridor, cueing spotlights down on Bianca (Tessa Thompson)—musical artist and Adonis’ lover—as she leads him to the ring while singing. Otherwise, this isn’t a repivoting of the Rocky franchise, as Creed was, as much as it is essentially a remake of Rocky IV. In that film, Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) and Adonis’ father Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) both fought the Soviet Union’s Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren). (Apollo died in the ring; Rocky won in revenge.) Here, Drago returns—with a hulk of a son (Florian Munteanu) looking to take Adonis’ championship belt. Adonis’ motivations are less compelling here than they were in Creed—especially in the way they sideline his relationship with the pregnant Bianca. In the end, he does what he does so that there can be a Creed II, nothing more, nothing less. Stallone, who co-wrote the screenplay with Juel Taylor, is still around onscreen as well, which gives the film a stumbling, mumbling gravitas. (I love how this character has evolved into a gentle sap/sage ever since the excellent Rocky Balboa.) Steven Caple Jr. directs, although the most noticeable aesthetic touch is the distracting use of green-screen backgrounds during the boxing matches. If any movie sport should have a tactile sense of space and place, it’s boxing, but here the opponents are too often floating in generic, CGI space.
(3/4/2023)
