Creed 3 as a movie best represents a fighter at the end of his career. The end of a career is never as exciting as the beginning or the middle. Yes, this is the worst film of the Creed trilogy, but that isn’t to say that it’s a bad movie and if you’re a fan of the Rocky or Creed series you should see it. In fact, it is a great way to end the story of Adonis Creed. But in a lot of ways, it felt like I was watching Muhammad Ali fight after “The Rumble in the Jungle”. There were some moments of excitement, but overall, it was kind of sad. Is Michael B Jordan’s Direction. Has a first-time director he made a lot of bold choices, some of them worked and some of them didn’t, but he definitely has the makings of a good director and I hope we get to see more from him. I enjoyed the film for what it is, but there is one major thing lacking and that is Rocky Balboa. What made the first two Creed movies great is that you had Rocky Balboa as the trainer. You had the legend in Creed’s corner passing the torch to the younger boxer. There’s an emotional weight that comes with Rocky being in the corner of Apollo Creed’s son as he’s rising to the top of the boxing world. You don’t have that same emotional weight in this movie even though the story is centered around Adonis having to face this past. It’s a good story kind of like Rocky 3, but not as good as the story in the previous films. But really, I don’t think we were expecting it to be as good, you go into this movie hoping that it’s not going to be bad.

What makes this movie worth watching?  First, you get Great Performances out of Michael B. Jordan and Jonathan Majors. Really the standout performance is from Jonathan Majors who plays the former friend that spent half his life in prison and wants a second chance in the world of boxing. He plays a very sympathetic villain. In some ways, you can’t help but root for him once you know the full story of what happened between him and Adonis when they were kids. He is a mixture of two different kinds of boxers. The young hungry boxer that you root for to get to the top and the one whose ego takes with the trappings of when you’re at the top and you forget who you really are and what got you there in the first place. In some ways, it symbolizes a young Mike Tyson. You understand his reasons for forcing his way into a title shot and his hatred toward Adonis because he feels that Creed got to live the life he should have had before he went to prison. This whole movie is about these two reconciling their past and of course the only way to reconcile it is a boxing match. It’s a good story, but again doesn’t have the same emotional weight as the first two movies It’s still a decent movie with great boxing action for the most part. It has a lot of great nods to all the Rocky movies. Probably the best reference is when the character played by Jonathan majors wants a title shot even though he’s not a professional boxer and tells him that even Apollo Creed gave Rocky, an unknown boxer a shot at the title. If this is the last movie in the Rocky universe, especially the story of Adonis breed then it is a fitting end.

I admit that this movie could be better. You but it still had a scene or two with Rocky. You even had Ivan Drago back for this movie and he and Adonis are even friends. Really, my favorite part of the entire movie is when Ivan Drago is helping Adonis Creed train for the upcoming fight against his former friend. However, this movie is predictable. You know exactly what’s going to happen before you even see the movie and yes, one could argue that all of the Rocky movies are fairly predictable. Rocky was always going to win in the end or at least go the distance and the first Creed movie mirrored that when he didn’t win the fight but went the distance against the world champion. This film is all about Adonis Creed having to reinvent himself for one more fight and regain the heavyweight championship of the world. Technically this is a spoiler, but again, you know he’s going to win. The other major criticism I have is while it’s okay to make some bold choices as a director, the big fight at the end should have the greatest boxing action. This one didn’t. Most of the fight had too many metaphorical images of a fight between two friends and having to overcome their past. You can have those images for one or two rounds, but not most of the fight. There was more action in Rocky 3’s big fight with clever lying at the end of the film and that fight was only three rounds versus the 12 rounds they actually go for the big fight in Creed 3. In fact, the best boxing action comes from the fight when Jonathan Majors’ character actually wins the title. This movie felt very short, the story felt very small, and to add more to the emotional weight of the story, you could have had about another 10 minutes of flashbacks and training scenes.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t go see it in the theater. Just know that it won’t be as good as the first movie and definitely won’t be as good as Creed 2. Michael B Jordan does a great job directing this film, but it does feel like a lot was cut out to keep the movie under 2 hours. I’m not saying it should be a 3-hour movie, but a little bit more would have added to the story. You get some great boxing action. The training scenes are good, but when the training scenes are better than the actual fight that doesn’t make for a very good movie. However, this is a good end to the Adonis Creed story, but it just doesn’t feel like a Creed movie without Rocky Balboa is more and that’s the film’s biggest downfall. Yes, Adonis Creed is his own character and has his own story, but these movies are still Rocky movies even if Rocky is just the trainer. We’ve heard rumors that Sylvester Stallone wants to make another Rocky movie where he trains a talented but undocumented immigrant, that does sound interesting, but if that movie happens then hopefully, they don’t make the mistake that Creed 3 makes…not having cameos by other characters like Adonis Creed. If you catch Creed 3 in the theater, go to a matinee or just wait till you can rent it. It’s an okay movie, just not good enough to match the awesomeness of Creed 1 and 2.