‘Creed II’: Film Review

Author: Todd McCarthy / Source: The Hollywood Reporter

Michael B. Jordan, Tessa Thompson and Sylvester Stallone return for a follow-up to the 2015 box-office hit, this time with Steven Caple Jr. directing.

As Rocky II was to Rocky, so is Creed II to its powerhouse progenitor — that is, a pale shadow of its daddy.

Slack and unexciting compared to Ryan Coogler’s blisteringly good 2015 reconception of a 1970s icon for modern audiences, this follow-up is an undeniable disappointment in nearly every way, from its dreary homefront interludes to a climactic boxing match that feels far-fetched in the extreme. Nothing here has been freshly thought out, nor is there a drop of surprise as to the story’s trajectory, forcing the viewer to tolerate conventional emotional beats and stale plot contrivances. All the same, Creed is a brand just as Rocky was, so it will succeed, at least up to a point.

After taking the heavyweight title three years ago, Creed, a.k.a. Adonis Johnson (the beautifully buff Michael B. Jordan), is finally working up the nerve to ask his girlfriend Bianca (Tessa Thompson) to marry him in the wake of winning a championship bout. But there’s an opponent over in the Ukraine also preying on his nerves, one Viktor Drago (Florian Munteanu), a giant fighting machine who just happens to be the son of the man who killed Creed’s dad Apollo in the ring a generation earlier in Rocky IV, he being Ivan Drago (played by none other than a scruffy but handsomely aged Dolph Lundgren).

Audiences happy to see the same old scenario played out all over again, albeit with far less suspense than before, might be willing to swallow this regurgitation of used ingredients, as may the vast number of young people who have never seen the original series. However, not only are the boxing matches shot in an entirely conventional manner, particularly compared to the wonderfully inventive approach to the fights taken by Coogler and cinematographer Maryse Alberti the first time around, but the domestic scenes are listless. The script is stuffed with corny bashfulness on Creed’s part, and there’s page after page of expository dialogue, as Rocky (Stallone, who has a goodly number of scenes) takes time out from chatting with his wife’s tombstone in order to advise Creed not to fight Viktor Drago.

From what we see of Viktor in his training sessions, the man is an absolute monster. Several inches taller than his American opponent, he looks like he could KO Creed in one round and then take on Dwayne Johnson and Vin Diesel simultaneously just for laughs. As…

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