If You Liked Creed, You’ll Like Creed II

The Rocky saga continues with another finely crafted film that effectively builds upon the films that came before it. Not all of the films in the saga were finely crafted films. The first two are gems, the first being nearly flawless, the second granting its audience the win we wanted to see in the first film. The third, fourth and fifth installments were much more hokey and far from flawless, but the sweet natured Rocky was always a joy even when compelling us to roll our eyes. Rocky Balboa was a return to the excellence of Rocky films and would have made a perfectly fine coda to that saga.

Then came Ryan Coogler and an idea to pass the torch onto Apollo Creed’s bastard son, Adonis Creed with Rocky taking on the role of trainer. Once again a finely crafted film was entered into the Rocky pantheon with a new and fresh boxer played by the always likable Micheal B. Jordan. There was always a kind of shtick (as great as it was) to Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky. A lumbering oaf of a shoulder shrugging, “hey yo, I don’t know…” Italian-American. Stallone has worn Rocky well and while Stallone has gained, and lost weight for the roles, the role itself has always been a perfect fit.

Jordan’s more gracefully naive boxer is every bit as sweet as Rocky ever was, maybe even sweeter. Where the first Creed made clear this sweetness in Adonis, Creed 2 (directed by Steven Caple Jr.) emphasizes it in nearly ever scene. Thankfully not saccharine sweet there are plenty of bittersweet moments to avoid the kind of eye roll’s and groans less successful Rocky films threw at us. Along with Jule Taylor (based on a story by Sasha Penn and Cheo Hodari Coker), Stallone wrote the screenplay focusing on fathers and sons. Absentee fathers and sons more particularly.

In the first Creed there is little explanation for why Rocky, the father figure in that story, and obviously compelled to embrace Adonis as family, stumbles on this matter. Where Rocky Balboa showed a troubled relationship between he and his son, the film ends with those troubles seemingly resolved. The first Creed hints that this was not the case, but only barely hints at it. Creed 2 does little to explain why the distance between Rocky and his son became what it is, but goes a long way in explaining why Rocky is so reluctant to accept his role as father figure to Adonis. Rocky, with his own son has largely been an absentee father.

Apollo Creed, dying before Adonis was even born is the epitome of an absentee father, his ghost haunting Adonis at every turn. Here is where Stallone takes his penchant for cheese and churns out a sublime Gouda carefully wrapped in the wax of Ivan Drago, the Russian boxer who killed Apollo Creed in the ring. The film opens with a wordless Ivan waking his wordless son Viktor to train. The skies are gritty gray and the training soon cuts to a fight in which the younger Drago handily defeats his opponent in a gritty gray Drago style knockout.

A cut to Adonis Creed as the challenger in a match in which he wins the World Heavyweight Championship title and the die is cast. Russel Hornsby playing promoter Buddy Marcelle contacts Ivan and let’s him know it is time and before we know it the Dragos are in the U.S. Challenging Creed to a fight. The son of the man who killed Apollo Creed in the ring wants to fight the son of Apollo Creed, but Rocky who was in Apollo’s corner and now harbors guilt for his death is having none of it. Adonis, if he decides to fight must do it without Rocky.

This is not just a paint by numbers reboot of Rocky IV, although it certainly follows the template. Early on in the film Adonis asks his “Unc” Rocky for advice on how to propose marriage to Bianca. Rocky reminisces about his proposal to Adrian before finally telling Adonis to say what is in his heart. Adonis with his big heart takes a deep breath and starts to leave to go pop the question but turning around at the last moment to make sure Rocky’s okay. It’s a small moment to remind us how much the kid cares about that man.

Later, after Bianca and he have married they discuss leaving Philadelphia for Los Angeles where his mother lives and where record labels for Bianca’s burgeoning music career are located. It is she pointing this out and he reluctant to make the move. Finally, and pointedly, he asks “What about Rocky?” Meanwhile Rocky’s still visiting Adrian’s grave, now telling her how he’s let Robert (his biological son) slip away and how difficult he finds it to reconnect. Absentee fathers and sons, after all, is what this movie is about.

Ivan Danko, however, is an absentee father who has remained a part of his son’s life every day. Every day the young Danko strives to please a father who hasn’t been able to move past his loss to Rocky. Apollo is the ghost haunting Adonis, but Ivan is a haunted ghost who haunts is own son. Dolph Lundgren quietly sinks his teeth into the role that introduced the world to he revealing a bitter Ivan unwilling to accept any responsibility for his own downfall. In fact, whether intended to be meta or not, he has a line in a scene where he first confronts the older Rocky blaming him for all of the woes which include the loss of his wife. Bridgett Neilsen played and plays that wife, who Sylvester Stallone actually married in real life.

Florian “Big Nasty” Munteanu as Viktor is fine in a largely wordless role, but it is Tessa Thompson’s Bianca that is terrific. Talia Shire as Adrian was always fine too but Adrian was a mousy girl who quietly comes into her own which requires understated work from Shire. Bianca, on the other hand, is anything but mousy. Even so, it is the little details that Thompson brings to Bianca that are such a joy to watch. At one of Creed’s fights she sits in the crowd with Mary Anne Creed (Phylicia Rashad) and one point jumps up gregariously to cheer Apollo tangentially aware that she’s startled Mary Anne and it is her quick touch of Mary Anne’s hand in reassurance that gives one example of those details.

In a film series that refuses to die hard, harder, or anyway at all, the Rocky series is all the richer for the Creed additions and Creed 2 is well worth the price of admission.