Creed III

And here we go. The third “Creed” movie in the series. It’s going to feel kinda weird not having Rocky involved in this project. I saw an interview that Sylvester Stallone gave and he felt like it wasn’t the kind of picture he wanted to be involved with.

He felt like the film was taking a different direction from what his vision for these films should be. Here’s his quote:

“I wish them well, but I’m much more of a sentimentalist,” he explained. “I like my heroes getting beat up, but I just don’t want them going into that dark space. I just feel people have enough darkness.”

The film starts off with a young Adonis Creed sneaking out the house to roll with his friend in 2002 Los Angeles. Now you know these two are up to no good is the vibe I’m getting from this scene.

It looks like they’re headed towards an underground club. Oh! It’s an underground fight club? Ain’t that a whole nother movie?! I see ole Avon Barksdale in this movie. 2002 was the first season of The Wire. Those were the daysssssssss. (In an Archie Bunker font)

They just put down a bet on one of the fights. Good grief! That dude got knocked the fuck out. That fight lasted about as long as Vanilla Ice’s music career. That’s a mighty, nice looking BMW that they’re riding in. Damn! Adonis starts beating down on a man for no reason.

They bring you up to present day with Creed taking on Ricky Conlan in a rematch I believe. There goes fine ass Tessa Thompson. She’s doing a lot of sign language now. I wonder has she completely gone deaf in this film.

Creed knew he had this mofo’s number and he gets the win with a knockout. This must be like a retirement fight for Adonis. Well, that’s the way they’re going to make it appear.

Creed is back home recovering and enjoying family life with his daughter who also appears to have the same condition that her mom has. The champ is facing his toughest bout yet; He’s hosting a tea party with his precious daughter.

Oh my bad! Bianca (Tessa Thompson’s character) can still speak and hear. Lemiert Park? Why does that sound so familiar?! I believe that’s where the tv sitcom “Moesha” was shot. A little tv trivia to start off your day. At least, I hope it’s correct. Lol.

Adonis is on his business tip in this one. He stops by the gym to give a young, promising fighter some advice where he runs into an old friend standing against his ride outside.

It’s the same old friend from that BMW ride earlier up in the movie. He invites him out to get something to eat. The man was in prison for a long time and just got released.

Dame wants to resume his boxing career and Adonis ends up helping him get it started again. Looks like Duke isn’t too happy training Dame so Adonis has to persuade him to give him “the proverbial shot.”

I can already see where they will be going with the next of “Creed” movies. The franchises future is definitely female whether folks like it or not. They had Adonis’ daughter jack some girl in the face because she tore up her drawing. Can’t say that she didn’t deserve it though.

You do the crime, you do the time! Lol. Adonis teaches their daughter, Amara, how to fight and his woman is giving him grief for doing it. Both sides are right though.

Dame stops by Adonis & Bianca’s mansion to get better reacquainted with them and catch up on some old times. Dame lets it be known that he wants a shot at the title.

Dame gets tired of being a lowly sparring partner and let’s out all of hus frustrations on the young propsect delivering a series of lefts and rights. Adonis is at home talking with his daughter about her first round KO of Nancy earlier at school.

He’s even giving her some more boxing lessons. Adonis and his lady head out to see one of her autotune singing artists and guess who else is there? Dame. Dame is checking out that non-singing woman as well.

Dame has a conversation with Bianca about how he ended up in the slammer. He gives her the rundown and then a fight breaks out between the fighters that Adonis is promoting resulting in one of the fighters getting injured.

Without any other contenders, Dame is selected to fight Felix. Talk about when one door slamming and another opening. I can’t front but I’m really getting behind the character, Dame. I can relate to wanting a chance to do something big and here he is on the cusp of doing just that.

Felix is having one heck of an entrance. This fight isn’t lasting long at all. Felix is bringing the flash but Dame is bringing the thunder. The fight sequence in this match was incredible. Felix is out cold and he might be down for good. Dame is the new champion.

I was getting the feeling that they were going to remix the Apollo Creed/Ivan Drago fight in which resulted in the death of Apollo but Felix does survive.

Apollo heads to back home and has a conversation with his mother in which she divulges that she hid all those letters that Dame wrote him while he was in prison to protect him.

Dame set up that fight in which Felix’s original fighter was stabbed. The guy that did the deed was a cellmate of his. Well played by Dame like a true villain.

Adonis confronts Dame when he figured out that he got played. He eats a punch for his trouble. They’re doing a great job of building a fight between the two.

When a person’s angry the last thing they needs is some booze. Lay off the sauce, homez. You cannot drink your problems away. Matter of fact, drinking will lead to even more problems for you.

Adonis gets into a heated argument with his wife and his daughter witnesses it. Adonis takes a drive back to where he got into trouble with Dame back in the day where he was informed that his mother had another stroke. She’s dealing with organ failure.

Don’t tell me that she’s going to die in this one. I might need to look away. She did indeed pass on. Her and Apollo are back together again. Adonis meets up with his wife and apologizes to her for everything and explains to her what happened that night he and Dame got into trouble.

He admits to her that he started the altercation with Leon. Leon was the man that he can be seen beating on that at the beginning of the film. That’s what lead to Dame getting caught with a firearm while Adonis ran away from the scene. Here goes Stephen A. Smith’s scene. I wonder how much he was paid for that cameo.

Dame calls into the show and interrupts the proceedings. He pretty much has been running Adonis’ name through the mud. Adonis grows tired and challenges Dame to a match which Dame accepts.

They’ve done well with these training montages but training isn’t going so well for Adonis at the beginning. Here comes the turnaround though. This stuff does make you want to get up and train even on an off day. A brilliant job of getting everybody hyped for this bout.

I liked how they have all the fireworks very similar to when Apollo Creed came out when he faced Ivan Drago back in Rocky IV. And here we go. Ding! Ding!

Creed is winning this fight just as long as he’s realizing that he’s fighting the grown man Dame and not the young man Dame. Night, night sweet Dame. And that’s the end of the fight.

Creed takes some time out to reflect when everybody’s celebrating. He goes off and seeks out Damian. He finds him in his dressing room and apologizes to him. They show his daughter sparring in the boxing ring. Her father joins her as they play fight with the daughter ending up winning.

They celebrate as Apollo elevates her upon his shoulders and that’s the end of it. I thought the movie was well done. Outside of Stallone not being involved and Mary Anne Creed dying, I thought everything else was really good.

I’d give the movie 4 out of 5 stars.