CREED 2 (2018) ****

Creed was a one in a million shot.  I mean how can you make a Rocky movie without Rocky as the main character and make it work?  Somehow Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan delivered a film that was every bit as good, if not better than the other Rocky sequels.  Even with the runaway success of Creed, I walked into this sequel with a sense of trepidation.  I mean, how can you make lightning strike twice?  Like the main character, Creed 2 beats the odds.  

Creed 2 sort of functions as Rocky 4 Part 2.  Ivan Drago (Dolph Lungren), the man who killed Apollo Creed, brings his son Viktor (Florian Munteanu) to America to challenge Apollo’s son Adonis (Jordan) for the heavyweight championship of the world.  Adonis turns to his trainer (and the only one to defeat Drago) Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) for help.  And that’s where I’ll stop, because seeing how the plot unfolds is one of the movie’s many joys.

Creed 2 cherry picks the best elements of all the Rocky movies and weaves them into one rich tapestry.  The obvious one is Rocky 4, but there are also shades of 2, 3, and even 5 at play here.  Even if some of the plot seems a bit familiar, it’s still full of surprises that I wouldn’t dream of revealing. 

Creed was such a treasure.  I wondered how they’d ever top it.  That’s the secret of 2’s success.  It feels the same way.  Just as Adonis is living in the shadow of his father, Creed 2 is living in the shadow of the original.  Adonis, like the movie itself, realizes in order to escape that shadow, you must forge your own path.

Creed 2 keeps an eye in the rear-view mirror, honoring what came before, but never loses sight of the future as it blazes down its own road of discovery.  It’s a movie about fathers and sons and how the legacy of the father can lead to unrealistic expectations for the son.  It’s about trying to rewrite history while at the same time securing the future.  It’s about doing the right thing for the right reasons.  There are scenes that pull at your heartstrings and make you pump your fist; sometimes at the same time.  That is to say, it’s a Rocky movie, and a great one at that. 

The performances are stellar.  Jordan once again essays the role of Creed with confidence, swagger, and heart.  He’s especially good whenever he’s on screen with Tessa Thompson.  Their chemistry during their domestic scenes are the foundation of their journey together, one that I can’t wait to see flourish as the series goes on.  Stallone does another fine job as Rocky.  He has a little less to do here than he did in Creed, but he is nevertheless excellent, particularly when professing the guilt he still feels for not stopping Apollo’s fight with Drago.  Speaking of Drago, all I can say is that Dolph Lundgren is a revelation.  

God damn it.  I didn’t think it could happen.  Dolph Lundgren made me cry. 

Director Steven Caple, Jr. doesn’t do any of the long-take cinematic gymnastics of Ryan Coogler.  He brings his own style to the proceedings and carves out his own niche in the Rocky franchise.  He has made a film that stands shoulder to shoulder alongside the original as a shining example of what the Rocky movies, and what cinema itself, are all about.

Naturally, Rocky gets the best line of the movie when he says, “He broke things in me that ain’t never been fixed!”