A few months ago, notable filmmaker Patrick Willems made a video about "Why Baseball is the Best Movie Sport." Boxing and others were disqualified from discussion because he narrowed the criteria down to team sports that use some kind of ball. If it wasn't disqualified, a case could be made for boxing.
The main reasons are the incredibly fast pace of fights, and no team means there's no ringer who can steal the show. As a bonus to the second point, editing and cinematography are much tighter because the focus is primarily on the two opponents. If this is the case, The Creed Trilogy may be one of the best sports trilogies out there. And to me, the third movie ranks comfortably between the first and second entries in the series.
Another potential tagline, mixing chemistry on-screen and off, "A matchup made in heaven, fought in Hell." | Copyright MGM/Amazon 2023
From Rotten Tomatoes, "After dominating the boxing world, Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan) has been thriving in both his [promotor] career and family life. When a childhood friend and former boxing prodigy, Damian [Anderson] (Jonathan Majors), resurfaces after serving a long sentence in prison, he is eager to prove [himself]."
Adonis's, or Donnie's, family life also includes his hard-of-hearing wife Bianca Taylor (Tessa Thompson), their deaf daughter Amara (Mila Davis-Kent), and Donnie's adoptive mother Mary Anne Creed (Phylicia Rashad).
There are more characters and cast members to get to, but for now, Creed III is written by Keenan Coogler & Zach Baylin, it is Michael B. Jordan's directorial debut, it's shot by Creed II cinematographer Kramer Morgenthau, and Creed director Ryan Coogler was involved in crafting this story. Ryan Coogler has also maintained some kind of producer role since Creed II. One reason why he had to stop directing this series may be because of the demands of his Black Panther movies, but also Creed III has been aggressively, and rightly so, hyped up as Jordan's vision. He is excellent on every side of the camera!
The most talked about part of this movie has been Jordan's anime influence. I watch some generally known favorites like Dragon Ball and Ghibli, so the slow motion in the initial fight looked more like a cranked-down version of a bare-knuckle brawl in Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes, and I mean cranked down in a good way because we're not held in suspense for too long. The action flows! Each fight in Creed III has a beautiful, proper, electric close, even if they go by a bit quicker than usual.
The final match between Donnie and Damian is unlike anything we've seen before in a boxing movie, and maybe in any live-action film. After the opening round, we enter a hyper-reality that's like Yu-Gi-Oh's Shadow Realm. The two fighters have blocked out their surroundings, but aspects of their lives appear around them. And we, the audience, are not entirely privy to what's said as they fight out their demons. It's told through screaming in-between strikes, and the only clue that there is a real conversation going on is implied because of prior in-ring trash talking, the checking in Donnie does with "Pretty" Ricky Conlon (Tony Bellew) after their fight to make sure it's all business and not personal, and little things like that. The boxers are dressed in black and white, respectively. Yes, that's really on the nose. But I'm going to go to bat for the choice and say that a lot of gray was filled in during those perceived talks. I'll talk more about costumes in a moment.
Some people have said that the training montage this time around was underwhelming, even with an exercise like this... | Copyright MGM/Amazon 2023
But I believe the ending of first one and whatever the hell this was from Creed II just left unmatchable imprints | Copyright MGM and WB, 2015 and 2018
Michael B. Jordan trusts his audience to pick things up at least on a re-watch, and it affords him, and editors Jessica Baclesse and Tyler Nelson, the ability to trim the movie down to a little under two hours, including credits. It works, but it left me wanting more about this chapter in everyone's lives, not just Donnie's. We may not get back to that in the sequel, spinoffs, or whatever is cooking off the massive success of this entry. I really hope a director's cut is planned for this one because it looks like Davis-Kent's time as Amara, and Wood Harris's time as "Little Duke," were cut short.
I can only assume that "Little Duke" was going to fill in more of the boys' backstory growing up together. We see him in the prologue, and that's pretty much it at that time. Amara idolizes her dad, watches all his fights, and is looking to be a boxer like him. For now though, she's a very young kid. When she gets into a fight in school, that should be the last resort. The movie loses a bit of the message of "Why we fight" that I had trouble identifying the first time I watched Creed II. It took a rewatch and the insight of other critics for me to find it. I think I struggled less on the first watch of III, so that's why I'm putting it above II. A director's cut won't put it above the first movie, but, whatever the future may hold, it can help form a more complete trilogy.
Anyway, we need to talk about Jonathan Majors for a moment. He pulls this amazing long game in his layered performance that takes him from friend who is actually playing everybody, to antagonist, and back to worthy rival. He comes on the scene feeling a bit off, and we're really not sure what his deal is. Some critics have said that they noticed we don't see what his life in prison was like, and that's great because that would've told us too much in an instant. So much of it comes from how he fights. When he relies on illegal blows to move up the ranks, and when he doesn't in his title fight against Adonis. I think it's part of that gray space I mentioned. People have said that his turnaround at the end of the movie was too fast, but I think there's reason enough between his two methods in the ring to buy into it. Again, a longer cut could back these things up more, but it's more than sufficient character-building. Majors plays into all by showing incredible range. It's as easy to see him as a chameleon, between this and his Marvel roles, as it is to see Damian himself as a bit of one too. That really comes through when he's sizing up the Creed family through Bianca. His next huge showcase in Magazine Dreams can't come soon enough.
We've also gotta talk about Tessa Thompson and her dynamic with Jordan. The short version is that this is an incredibly deep relationship that's been constructed over three movies, it's been consistent across three directors, and it's one of the healthiest fictional marriages I can think of outside of the go-to of Gomez and Morticia Addams. The difference, obviously, is that this is much more grounded. That's impressive. Thompson and Coogler made sure early on that Bianca has her own life outside of her man, and that has held on. They are each other's rocks, but she's also got a music producer career that's been a successful, but taxing, transition for her. Thompson usually brings a bit of an edge to most of her roles. That's not dulled, but it's replaced with wisdom, as she has to push others around her to open up more, and she does the same for them. She’s the Tony Porter of the film, although she recognizes the emotional labor of that label and leaves her husband to reflect on that. I love how the movie takes the time to talk about how she copes with her progressive hearing loss. Also, on the subject of women, we see them as trainers and commentators, without it being like "a thing," and that's such a fantastic detail. There are still ring girls in-between rounds though, and so that does stick out more than it normally would.
Bianca's struggles are heightened a little bit more by seeing this movie on a big screen with open-captions, which means everyone is seeing those captions in the theatre. And, in this case, sign language is done with its own font style, so everything is crystal clear to just about everyone. I hope blind people also had their needs met for this one. I can only assume that they were, and I hope that's just a standard now. I'd like my dad to be able to at least try to enjoy movies again.
Finally, I just want to talk a bit about the costume design by Lizz Wolf, especially because it may go unnoticed when the most notable looks heavily feature pecs and packs. Some of the anime influence is actually right here, as people have pointed out an Akira-style of the shorts worn in the first fight. Also, this is a bit silly, but I just love the corporate-casual-comfortable look of the suits the two main actors wear throughout the movie. Dress pants, a suit jacket, but a hoodie underneath the jacket. That sounds so fucking cozy, and I love it. Sweaters with a suit jacket over it, instead of a button-up, that's the best of all of this. It's just something that got me re-thinking my dresser a little, and I didn't know I could be stylish and happy at the same time like that, so it's appreciated.
Look V by Ralph Lauren. We got an appearance from Apollo, too | Copyright MGM/Amazon 2023
Things like that help Creed III go the distance.
II is at the same rating because no matter how well they pulled it off, bringing in the Dragos will always feel like a gimmick to me. Creed gets an extra because that "I'm not a mistake" line knocked me out the first time, made me fucking cry, and it at least puts me on the mat every other time I see it.
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