“Creed 3” (2023)

I am pretty sure that when Sylvester Stallone came up with the idea of Rocky in 1976, he would never believe that almost 50 years after, we would be talking about the 9th movie of this saga; sadly, not all of it is a reason to celebrate.

“Creed III” is the first of the 9 movies that don’t have Sylvester Stallone involved in some way, and believe it or not, that does make it feel different.

Michael B. Jordan does a great job in front and behind the camera; he shows a lot of potential, and it’s obvious he learned a lot seeing directors like Ryan Coogler at work; he has great control of the camera, and visually he did capture some fantastic shoots.

The problem was he didn’t have the maturity and experience as a director to pull back some of the ideas that might not fit this specific movie, the “Sherlock Holmes” inspired slow motions and especially the visually edited fight in the end with Jonathan Majors jail motive felt out of place, felt like the work of someone trying to show way too much.

In front of the camera, Michael B. Jordan always has an infectious charisma, but maybe because of his double job, he felt less connected to it; he felt distracted and especially in the scenes with Tessa Thompson, the chemistry was not as strong as the movies before.

With Jonathan Majors, on the other hand, the chemistry is there from the first moment; there is something about Majors that is just hypnotic; he sometimes looks out of place, like he is not comfortable, but without you even noticing, he grows and steals the attention from anyone else on screen, and he does it here again.

The action and the fight sequences are great, mainly because of the physical aspect that Jordan and Majors bring to the screen, but it does look less organic; it feels more choreographed, all of it is more pretty, and even the training montages that are such a big part of any Rocky movie with the use of the music feels like a music video.

So I did like this more than the second movie but not as much as the first, and I think it all goes down to Michael B. Jordan had his first opportunity to show all he learned through all the amazing directors he worked with but not having the maturity still to pick what fits better for this specific story, that said he did a great job and shows we can expect much from him in the future.

It is a fun movie with some great action and performances, but yet again, like in many movies, I will end by saying the best part of it is Jonathan Majors.

Have you seen “Creed III”? What did you think?

Should they continue the Creed saga?

Let us know in the comments.