Film Review - Creed III (2023)

It is, in case you hadn’t noticed, The Year Of Jonathan Majors. So far, anyway. After building an impressive resume including Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania and now he’s gracing cinema screens again in boxing threequel, Creed III. As an aside, his Sundance hit, Magazine Dreams, has a UK distributor in the shape of Searchlight, but no release date. We await its arrival with bated breath.

Not that Creed III is all his show. It still belongs to Michael B Jordan, who not only puts on the gloves for the third time in the title role, but makes his directorial debut for what is the first proper Adonis Creed story. There’s no sign of former mentor, a certain Mr Balboa, signifying a move forward in the saga. As the film opens, Creed has retired from the ring, is enjoying life behind the scenes and spending time with his wife and daughter. The return of a once-close childhood friend, Damian Anderson (Majors) threatens to upset his stability: over 18 years in prison he’s nursed a festering grudge against Creed while holding on to his own dreams of boxing glory. After a title bout, he looks unbeatable, until Creed decides to put a stop to his ambitions for good.

After the disappointment of the MCU’s recent threequel, Jordan brings us something altogether more satisfying and engaging. That’s not to say it doesn’t have its weaknesses – too much artistic license is applied to the film’s timeline, making Damian’s rise in the ring more than a little incongruous – but they’re outweighed by some impressive strengths. He’s clearly taken much from working with long-term collaborator Ryan Coogler, who directed the previous two outings in the franchise. Crowd scenes are handled with skill and confidence and the main fight sequences are explosive, aggressive and feel authentic, counterbalancing the film’s somewhat formulaic approach. Creed sports white gloves and shorts in the final fight, while Damian wears black, and that says it all.

Carrying the responsibilities of both directing and acting on his shoulders with ease, Jordan has also assembled a cast that does him huge credit. Majors, as expected, is magnetic as the brooding former friend who represents the darker side of Creed’s past. His impressive physique means he not only looks the part but, perhaps most remarkable of all, echoes Mike Tyson in his heyday. As Creed’s wife Bianca, Tessa Thompson keeps the man in her life grounded and his testosterone under control, so that it’s more than simply a boxing movie. And the unfussy depiction of both her hearing loss, and that of their daughter Amara (Mila Davis-Kent), is something that other films about disability should follow.

Like its predecessors, Creed III is a solid, eminently watchable piece of cinema, but with Jordan in the director’s chair and Majors as his possible nemesis, it moves up a notch. Threequels often signify the end of a franchise, but Jordan has already confirmed that a fourth instalment is in the works. Just as well – because his audience will be wanting more.