Creed III review (with no major spoilers)

There were only three films due to release this year that I really, really, really wanted to see and Creed III was one of them. People who know me will be aware I love the Rocky franchise and the Creed movies too.

The other films – in case you wondered – were Evil Dead Rise, which I watched in the cinema the other week and will be reviewing soon. And……Meg 2: The Trench (which will come as no surprise at all, if you know me even just a tiny little bit). THE MEG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Had my usual experience in the cinema – namely too much ice cream and too many tossers. Every time I go to the cinema I’m honestly reminded of why I don’t go very often. Does anyone have decorum these days? I’m so sick of people arriving late and disrupting the film, talking through it and – my most hated thing – checking their mobile phones. Oh my god get a life, you can live without Facebook for 120 minutes can’t you? ANYWAY.

Creed III was good. It completely retained the themes we’re used to seeing in the films – i.e. family, loyalty, being serious and emotional and having a seemingly undefeatable enemy that Creed must face (where did they get that idea from?). Also the first of the franchise to be directed by Michael B Jordan himself. Where did they get that idea from?

But yep, I thought for a threequel this film was excellent. I still cared about the characters, I thought they’d evolved well and I liked the story. I cried at some point too. Creed’s enemy fighter – played extremely well by Jonathan Majors – had the same semblance of emotion and grey area empathy reminiscent to the Viktor Drago story in Creed II. And speaking of Viktor Drago – he makes an appearance too. Woo!

Am I right ladies?

I have heard, not sure how correct it is, that Sylvester Stallone wasn’t happy about some element of the film being made. The production maybe? Irwin Winkler? Some disagreement? I can’t be bothered to look it up but I’m fairly confident Stallone said he would never watch Creed III. Which implies trouble went on somewhere.

Of course, it’s the first ever Rocky/Creed film that he is NOT IN. Though they still used his fanfare I noticed (!). I felt some trepidation about Rocky not featuring, because, well, he’s Rocky! But the Creed character is pretty well established and his story is strong in its own right so, as much as I love The Italian Stallion his absence wasn’t particularly terrible.

The only however I did have, was they never once mentioned him. And that seemed very weird. I mean, if you’ve seen the first two films you’ll know how close Creed and Rocky are. Were? Are? Not sure. But Creed called him uncle, made him godfather to his daughter and nursed him through cancer. Just seemed extremely weird that he was never mentioned between Creed and his wife, or Creed and his mum (Apollo’s widow).

But yes, altogether a very good effort and no complaints from me. It made me want to watch the other Creed films again (which I did) and no doubt I’ll be watching Creed III again very soon too.

Watch this space for my next review……EVIL DEAD RISE!