View Single Post
Old 03-15-2023, 09:10 AM   #59
oldmanwinters
Overlord
 
oldmanwinters's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Between yesterday and tomorrow!
Posts: 14,896
Went to see it last night on the big XD screen for the Tuesday discount price last night in an almost empty theatre with recliners (my preferred way to enjoy these), and liked it, overall.

I agree with Andrew on these high points:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew NDB View Post

Pros:
* The movie kicks off the training wheels Creed 1 and 2 had in being so heavily tethered to the Rocky movies and relatively firmly becomes its own thing.
* For the first time since Rocky IV, we get a "bad guy" that's played by an actual actor, not a real boxer who has to kind of learn how to act real quick before shooting the movie. And it really helps.
* The boxing matches are filmed pretty refreshlingly. It feels new. Not clinical and ESPN-like and not overdone either. Dynamic. A lot of slow-mo hits.
One thing that was bizarre but much appreciated was the idea that a heavyweight championship match would take place in open-air Dodger Stadium. I'm sure a tone of CGI was used for the backdrops, but it is quite a spectacle. Seems like every real-life boxing match of consequence happens in the carefully monitored confines of Las Vegas, and the Rocky-verse films have really leaned into that trend since 2006. I'd LOVE for that type of venue to be more common in both art and life, but I can certainly understand a number of reasons against it... can you imagine if a fight like that was hyped up and then it rained on everything?

And I probably agree on all his *Cons too. But to elaborate:
As regards the Buildup, it seems there were two plot points would should have been Adonis' major motivating factors but just... kinda happened and didn't prove especially consequential:
Spoiler:
(1) The "Massacre" of Felix Chavez and (2) death of Clair Huxtable, er... I mean, Mrs. Creed.
The movie went to great lengths to build up Chavez as a full character despite not being essential to the plot as anything more than a jobber to buildup Dame; they give Chavez's mother several lines of spoken dialogue and an entire scene to the Chavez family considering whether to take the title fight with Dame. He gets a wonderfully eccentric fight intro and we get a three-round fight that culminates in his death scene... except he doesn't officially die. Beyond that his off-camera condition is referenced and then we see him attending the Battle for Los Angeles, I guess to make everybody feel good that he recovered. But... why bother? I felt like the movie was going hard for Rocky IV symmetry but giving Adonis a reason to come "out of retirement" and "avenge" his friend. Only problem is, Chavez and Adonis (and Duke Jr.) have a primarily business relationship where friendship (if it exists) is only a footnote. When Adonis stares down Dame after that Chavez beating, you feel like he's more upset over the damage to his business brand than potentially losing a friend (Adonis isn't exactly cradling Chavez's body like Rocky did for Apollo).
And then Mrs. Creed dies (heavily foreshadowed earlier) and that's the big emotional moment for Adonis, but the funeral happens, and then... I think that's it for that plot point. They have the nice connection together that's supposed to forgive any resentment between them, but whether or not her death provides any additional challenge, baggage or motivation for Adonis and his title bout with Dame is a moot point, at best.

So the movie has an in-ring "death" followed by a funeral for a major franchise character, but neither seem essential to raising the steaks for this film's conclusion. Those are thematic elements that Rocky III & IV landed with way more impact.


As far as Dame as a "villain"... yeah, Majors is great in the role. From a real-life perspective, I imagine it would be quite a sensational sports story if an aged +40 ex-con (not to comment on the movie's fictional justice system, but how does the dude get 15-20 years of incarceration...
Spoiler:

for pulling a gun on a street fight without firing it and then maybe or maybe not trying-and-failing to evade arrest, even if he does have some priors?) received and dominated a title shot with his 1st professional match--despite several illegal blows--and then went a brutal 12-rounds with a legendary post-retirement heavyweight champ in his 2nd fight.

But the BIGGER story would be the allegations that said +40 ex-con hired a hit-man on another major heavyweight in order to manipulate the fight promotor (his old buddy) into giving him the title shot. If Adonis has evidence that connects Dame and the hitman (didn't register in my mind at first because the hitman is so inconsequential and his face is barely seen on two occasions but apparently it's a big deal), that could be a media equivalent of Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan. Maybe you have the impending legal case against Dame (similar to the first movie's subplot with Conlan about to go to jail), but Creed decides to fight Dame anyway as a non-authorized exhibition grudge match.


I actually think that is a more interesting story than the movie we got with Creed III.

Additional thoughts:
*When I saw the PS2 game collection on teenaged Adonis' shelf (circa 2002 maybe?), it made me realize how odd it is that Adonis is almost surely still in high school when the events of Rocky Balboa take place. Makes me wonder whatever happened to Marie's teenaged son, Steps.
*Apollo Creed apparently owned (and had presumably attended) the 1974 Rumble in the Jungle match between Ali and Foreman. Not the first reference to the legendary fight in the franchise, but when exactly did Apollo Creed find the time to dominate the heavyweight division (he "retired more men than Social Security") up through January 1st, 1976? Man... this alternative boxing history just got even weirder.
*Reference is made to Don King, whom I never thought existed in the Rocky-verse, since his role was filled by George Washington Duke in Rocky V. So.. did the careers of Larry Holmes, Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, Lennox Lewis, et al play out almost true to real-life? Man... this alternative boxing history just got even weirder.
*Adonis Creed starts to reference Rocky's "It ain't about how hard you hit" but changes the ending to make it way less memorable.
*Dame's attempts to pressure Adonis into giving the same opportunity that Apollo gave Rocky was an interesting tactic, but it just didn't seem to mean as much when Adonis almost ordered Chavez to do it instead of fighting Dame himself to begin with.
*Chavez didn't even look like he belonged in the same weight class with Dame during their title bout.
*Did Michael B. Jordan get some CGI enhanced muscles at the end of his training montage? If not, very impressive. If so, they should have given Chavez a little movie magic too.
*In-universe, you would have thought a good health Rocky Balboa would have at least attended the funeral. Maybe not the Battle of LA. But... I dunno.
*This Looper article has some good observations; I especially thought the in-film switch from HBO to Showtime was an interesting point for the real-life relationship between MGM/Amazon/Warner Bros.
*What does it mean for Adonis to
Spoiler:
reclaim the unified heavyweight championships years after retirement? What would be his next logical step since the #1-3 ranked challengers would either be under his promotional stable or are training buddies/frienemies?

*A couple of the rap songs are heavy on the "N-word" to a point where they are impossible to ignore (the flashback scene and the leadup to the Battle of LA). I started to wonder if this was the right movie for someone like... uh, me.
__________________

Experience the TMNT Fan Commentaries!
Check out my TMNT fan comic, "Nothing to Fear"!
View my sketch work!
I'm selling some of my hard-to-find TMNT items!

Last edited by oldmanwinters; 03-16-2023 at 08:38 AM.
oldmanwinters is offline   Reply With Quote