Mark Kermode reviews Creed III - Kermode and Mayo's Take

#MarkKermode #SimonMayo #FilmReviews

Adonis has been thriving in both his career and family life, but when a childhood friend and former boxing prodigy resurfaces, the face-off is more than just a fight.

[RichJT]

It's clearly by the numbers but there's ways of doing 'by the numbers' that elevates it. It worked for me. Very good.

[mrbrandonmartin]

It's interesting that Mark highlighted the action scenes over the drama because it's usually the opposite. In most reviews, the action is the boring, schlock that gets you through until there is hopefully some character development. I'm excited to see it.

[chriswilson]

It was a very solid by the numbers movie. If you enjoyed the other rocky/Creed movies you'll enjoy this one.
I don't think it matched the drama of Creed 2 -Victor and Ivan gave that movie a great dynamic that elevated it a little more, but Creed 3 certainly had the best fight scenes and didn't disappoint.

[djnkosi]

Solid film. I really enjoyed it. Good review, as always. 👍🏽

[Gatsu-gatsu]

Can’t wait for the next instalment in the Rocky Cinematic Universe. I hope we get a Mickey origin story, we can learn about how he got his hat.

[finalfrontier]

Very much enjoyed this but definitely noticed the absence of Rocky, which was never explained in the film. The fight scene choreography was a notch above the first two: 4*

[GHAMVs]

The anime inspirations here have me soooo interested in Creed 3.

[heythisisminenotyours]

The creed series is far more entertaining than a rocky spin off in the late 2010's/2020s should be.

[petehobson]

Really, really enjoyed this film. Child one and two did as well.

Micheal B Jordan's direction was fabulous throughout and it was great that he tried some new things during the final fight.

One of my lads pointed something out to me towards the end that Adonis looks more like Apollo, with his facial hair and hairstyle, which I hadn't noticed at first.

The character of Damien Anderson (Jonathan Majors) was a great antagonist who was not your typical "bad guy".

[LukeGrayThe]

HERE WE GO....

Let me know if you think my suggestions would have made Creed 3 a better film:

Creed 3 Review

The film tried something different by focusing on somebody from Adonis’s past rather than another new unknown contender and I applaud it’s ability to open up a believable chapter from Donny’s younger years. I also thought the deaf daughter was a great addition and an example of diversity which didn’t feel crowbarred in. However, despite both of these aspects being good both - MASSIVELY trips up the film and I’ll explain why:

I’m not a boxing expert, not a sport I follow very closely at all so my knowledge is limited and what a film can get past me is quite considerable in terms of realism. However, not for one moment do I believe it’s realistic that somebody who has had no professional fights instantly gets a shot at the title and wins. And you might be thinking – but you were okay with the plot of Rocky? Well, although an unknown Rocky had many professional fights. However, most importantly it was built up to be the crazy spectacle that it was. It was a marketing gimmick and although this film touches on that a little – it REALLY doesn’t do enough. Stallone smartly ties it in to the character of Apollo, for the bicentennial anniversary, how Rocky is Italian and Apollo is giving one of Chris Columbus’s descendants a shot at the title etc. The story of how they’re going to wrangle it to the public is all there for us to see. In this it’s not. One 20 second scene around a dinner table and everyone is convinced this will make money. Why? And not only that but apparently the public attend in their tens of thousands to see it. It just felt like 5 minutes of acknowledging how insane this was – was what the film needed and didn’t do.

Then we have the problem that he wins. He wins dirty but he wins. Okay. However, AGAIN it’s an absolutely huge upset, one of the biggest in boxing history and it’s never really acknowledged. What’s even stranger is when Adonis steps back into the ring, HE is made out to be the one who has the odds stacked against him. Seriously? The former unified champion, who has been retired for 3 years is considered the underdog when he’s fighting an older guy who has ONE fight in his entire life? No matter how brutal they build up his character to be, they majorly misjudged this.

What they SHOULD HAVE DONE is have some time pass. Show 18 months passing where Felix gets a rematch and is annihilated, and show Dame have 3 or 4 other title matches where he knocks out every single one of his opponents. This would legitimise Dame as an actual boxer, not somebody who had to fight dirty and elbow his opponent in a desperate attempt to get a victory.

Why didn’t they do that? They could have done it as a montage or another way of showing a passage of time had occurred. It could have shown Adonis’s and Dame’s friendship becoming worse and could have seen Dame truly go out of control. I wanted to see this guy’s ego go out of whack and truly become a monster. I want us to fear this lunatic who has no line he won’t cross. Rather than telling us ‘Dame has been calling you out Adonis’ – SHOW US THIS! Show us the repugnant things he’s been saying in the media. And you know what should have been catalyst of Donny stepping back into the ring? Not Dame speaking crap about Apollo, we’ve been there before in both of the sequels. But Dame speaking crap about the late Mary Anne. We’d just seen her death scene (Best scene in the movie btw) and Dame actually does have heat with her because he knows she blocked his letters all those years. So he should have badmouthed her on some cocky social media post and THAT would have been the moment where the whole audience in the cinema would have said “I think you oughtta knock his block off!”. But we didn’t get that. Nothing like it. The motivation for Adonis coming out of retirement feels like it’s more about ego than anything else.

The reason why the daughter is an issue is because of her age – I believe that’s why we don’t see that passage of time occur. As much as I thought she was great, she wasn’t need in the last third of the film. It didn’t make sense to me that she had to be removed from the arena during the Felix fight because it was too violent but was front row to watch her Dad take on the same opponent. She’s about 8? She’s far too young to be watching that up close (especially considering Apollo died in the ring when he came out of retirement!). I think they only did that because they wanted that end scene in the ring with the family.

The fight itself… I’m not sure one Creed fight has satisfied me. I don’t think they know how to tell a story inside the ring. There’s seemingly no boxing tactics, no real strategies, it almost resembles superheroes fighting… one hits the other, the other one hits backs, to and throw endlessly without either one seemingly getting that hurt. Now the Rocky films certainly stretched believability in regards to those fights – but they always told a story. The drama was there. The emotion was there. You felt that you were in that ring yourself. With the Creed films I just don’t get that. It just feels like two Marvel characters exchanging punches until one of them arbitrarily loses. It’s all very meh.

What we got instead of the ‘fight montage’ was… a mistake. I appreciate the Creed series continually trying to do new things and I actually enjoyed the ‘anime’ inspired visuals at the beginning of the film. However, if you’re gonna try these things you’ve got to at least equal the tried and tested stuff from before. And this doesn’t. Rounds 3-11 being this surreal fight with prison backgrounds and green screen TOTALLY took me out of the fight. It wrecked all momentum (which is the opposite effect of the standard adrenaline rushing fight montages) and ultimately added nothing. Then to re-enter the fight in the 12th round is laughable. This is the main event of the film and this is what we get? Again, another boring, predictable win for Adonis. Why did he beat him in the 12th? What did he have to do to get that win? What obstacle did he have to overcome to secure it? What new strategy did he have to adopt to find a way to knock him down? The film doesn’t bother asking or answering any of those questions. We’re just told ‘He did it, alright! He just did it.’ Okay.

And worst of all… The film doesn’t realise that this ‘great win’ is absolutely not the great win it’s suggested to be because as I already mentioned… the former unified champion beat an older guy who’s only ever been in one professional boxing match!! Whoop de doo!! In some ways it was hugely embarrassing that Adonis didn’t wipe the floor with him in the first few rounds.

Despite all what I’ve written, I very much was on board and enjoyed the first half of the film and the premise. It just handled it wrong and the execution became increasingly worse at it went on. From memory, it’s better than Creed 2. However, being 8th out of 9 films for me personally… isn’t a great achievement. I feel if it had fixed the things I pointed out in this review, it would have had the potential to climb higher up that list as there was a decent amount of positives to be had.

[matayolandas]

One thing's for sure: Jonathan Majors' abs should win an Oscar.

[coolkid]

Has Kermode watched ‘Lovecraft Country’? Majors is brilliant in it, and the show is a masterpiece in itself. ❤

[splazshed]

I thought it was great. Yes parts of the plot are a bit ridiculous but I found the Creed / Dame back story and relationship to be very well done. It elevated above other films in the series where the main opponent has often been one dimensional.

[paradisecityable]

I heard Jonathan Majors gives a *KNOCKOUT* performance 💥🥊

[rileysafc]

It's good but nothing beats the rocky films. Music is key in those films

[laurencestevens]

I think Mark Kermode was correct that Jonathan Majors stole every scene he was in. A brooding, menacing presence but his performance was much more than just aggression. There was a fragility, most often expressed via facial expressions, and I left the cinema feeling empathy towards the character despite his obvious envy. I will definitely go and check his previous films as I thought it was an incredible performance in the midst of a somewhat standard though highly enjoyable sports/action flick.

[michaelservice]

A master class in how not to get your audience invested in any character.

[jeremyjmusic]

Never thought that a “Rocky” film would be so influenced by anime 😂

[bruceleeds]

I think it was a good decision at the best time possible to have a movie without Stallone in it. They gave him a good, non permanent exit arc, he is in NY with his family. Now we have truly seen that the franchise can hold it's own even without Rocky, we haven't even seen that with The Terminator Franchise (TV don't count)

[mainmanmainlining]

The only reason to see the movie is for the “villain.” That’s not a slight but a major endorsement