“Creed II” is the eighth “Rocky” film, and while not quite the roaring comeback for the almost wrung-out series that “Creed” was, it’s a solid rung in this “Rocky” ladder. And where, ultimately, does the “Rocky” ladder lead? Because, as of this “Creed,” there are definitely going to be at least two more “Creed” films.
Then maybe there’ll be a “Clubber.” As in Clubber Lang, Mr. T’s character in “Rocky III.“ Or a “Thunderlips” (Hulk Hogan’s character in “Rocky III”). In future ”Rocky” films, perhaps Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan), son of Apollo Creed (erstwhile opponent of Rocky Balboa), will have to fight the male offspring of Lang and Thunderlips.
And then, should Sylvester Stallone still be among the living, we’ll get into the Balboa, Creed, and Lang grandchildren all duking it out.
But again, where does it all ultimately lead? It’s really an urban (and suburban) manhood and warrior saga. There are many manly things here. There is the warrior creed. There is fatherhood. Mostly bad fatherhood.
“Creed II” addresses father-son bonds: Young Creed becomes a father; his opponent’s dad is the dad who killed Creed’s dad in the ring. And Rocky himself re-establishes contact with his own son.
Plot
Adonis still calls Rocky, now his trainer by way of storytelling perfection, “Unc.” Life is good. But then a devious boxing promoter (Russell Hornsby) (yes, “devious boxing promoter” is a redundant term) scouts down the Drago men in Russia. Dad Ivan is looking for payback and redemption after losing to Rocky, and son Viktor is very ambitious. It’s the perfect, logical plot and lineage/heritage extension.
Fast forward to the younger Creed-Drago boxing match number one: Drago the beast—with the mile-wide lats, shoulders, and trapezius muscles of an Olympic weightlifter—crushes the smaller Creed. Which of course leads to the ubiquitous (to “Rocky” movies) frenzied training camp. This one looks like something out of “Mad Max,” and the inhabitants look like MS-13 gang members, which is to say, very intense.
Will Creed prevail? This is his opportunity to vindicate the family name, although wife Bianca (Tessa Thompson) and mom Mary Anne (Phylicia Rashad) warn against it.
Will he get Unc Rock back to train him? Rocky refuses to train him for the first fight, wanting no part of setting another Drago against another Creed. Viktor, like his father before him, is a physical specimen that towers over and outweighs Creed.
What Else Is Good?
Stallone has always been underestimated as a dramatic actor, and his work here is real and vulnerable. Same goes for Michael B. Jordan and Tessa Thompson, who plays his wife.The sleeper performance, the one you don’t see coming, is compliments of Dolph Lundgren. He’s long been an acting joke, due to the fact that he was, for years, a 6’5” blond Swedish Adonis with the body of Hercules. How could a guy like that possibly also do art? He’s not a real actor!
Yes he is. That’s why he’s here, 30 years later, reprising his role, and that’s why you can feel the pain of the Soviet Union crushing Ivan Drago for 30 years due to his loss to Rocky. The communist regime links losing with being a loser, and you can see his shame. After this performance, I want to see the Swedish Lundgren and the Danish Viggo Mortensen play brothers.
Next up, Florian Munteanu is perfectly cast as Viktor, an absolute beast, with a wounded animal inside—wounded in witnessing his father’s pain. Inspired casting is also Brigitte Nielsen, Stallone’s former wife, as Viktor’s mother, Ludmila, who left Ivan, and he had to raise their son on his own.
Less Good
What’s not good is the score. It’s got schmaltz bordering on elevator music. It’s also not great that the best drama has to do with the secondary plot of the father-son pairing rather than that of Rocky and Adonis.In “Creed,” the main issues were Rocky being forced, through cancer, to contemplate his mortality, and Adonis’s attempt to navigate life without a father. Those were the aspects that breathed new life into the franchise and made it feel millennial and complex, as opposed to the 1980s line ‘em up and knock ’em down action.
Above all, in this extended tale of fighting men, this episode demos fatherhood, the role of the protector, and especially between Ivan and Viktor—forgiveness and compassion. These are the building blocks of nontoxic masculinity.
