Creed II (Film Review)

2018 MGM Pictures
Directed by: Steven Caple, Jr.; Written by: Juel Taylor and Sylvester Stallone
Starring: Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson, Wood Harris, Phylicia Rashad, Dolph Lundgren, and Florian Munteanu
MPAA Rating: PG-13; Running Time: 130 Minutes
The Nicsperiment Score: 8/10

1985's Rocky IV had a profound effect on me as a child. Apollo Creed's death in the boxing ring due to a pummeling by lab-enhanced Soviet giant, Ivan Drago, traumatized me. However, the never-give-up attitude of Creed's fellow-boxer friend, Rocky Balboa, as Balboa trained in an icy Siberian wasteland to avenge Creed, planted some seeds of resiliency in my psyche that stuck. In the climactic revenge fight, Balboa endures punch after steroid-fueled punch in the ring against the hulking Drago, slowing breaking Drago's will as Drago muses, "He's not human. He's like a piece of iron." I had found my spirit animal, and he was a 5'7" Italian-American man who could be hit a countless amount of times, then get right back up and start swinging himself. It probably didn't hurt that one of my grandfathers is Sicilian, and that most of the bullies I fought as a youngster were towering blond dudes.
Okay, so a cheesy, 90-minute music video of a movie from the 1980's affected me. Considering it's getting what amounts to a sequel 33-years later, it must have stuck with someone else, too. Creed II follows 2015's Creed, a sequel to the original Rocky series, where Apollo Creed's bastard son, Adonis, rises up from anonymity with the help of a now grizzled, wizened Rocky, to become a serious boxing contender. Creed II takes place a couple years after the original Creed film, and Adonis is no longer a contender, but the champ. Still, there seems to be some metaphysical hole in his soul he cannot fill. Thankfully, there's a hulking mass waiting at his door, ready to fill it with pain. Ivan Drago's son, Viktor, having been raised by his father in squalor and rage, is ready to bring pride back to the Drago name. It seems that after Ivan's loss to Rocky, mother Russia cast the Drago's out, and just as Adonis has been nurtured by Rocky's loving, fatherly guidance, the mammoth Viktor has been carved out of steel by his father's hatred.
"Oh great," you're saying, "another movie about fathers and sons with Shakespearean aspirations."
Well...yep. Creed II has no pretenses that it is neither a retread of classic fall down and get back up tropes, nor a one film summation of the original second, third, and fourth Rocky films. It is shamelessly both. When it is filmed this well, and acted this sharply, who cares?
Second time director, Steven Caple, Jr., taking over from Creed's now (deservedly) ascending Ryan Coogler, films Creed II like a 130-minute visual poem. Creed II's tsunami-of-emotion fight-training sequences rival those of Rocky IV, with symphonic rap replacing 80's synth-rock--and only the coldest of hearts could resist them. The returning and riveting Michael B. Jordan plays Adonis as a man who's starving, but doesn't know what he wants to eat.
For all its embracement of tropes, Creed II takes on more complex themes than the first film, as Adonis must come to a deeper understanding of not only why he fights, but who he fights for.
Sure, Creed II's not as fresh as the original. The first Creed, which netted Sylvester Stallone an Oscar nomination for his seventh performance as Rocky, is a miracle. Truthfully, this entire extended series is a miracle. Out of eight films, only one (Rocky V) is truly lousy, and the rest, at worst, are highly entertaining, and at best, classic films.
While Creed II's plot doesn't have freshness, it has resonance. That resonance is especially felt in the film's final quarter, as Caple, Jr. builds audience sympathy for Viktor, who seems to have no one in his corner, while Adonis' is full. Creating empathy for all of your characters, even the villains, is a sign of greatness, and while I am not in any way saying that Creed II is a great film, as it builds to an emotional moment I can only compare to one in Return of the Jedi, it is pretty damned good.