Imagine you and your ex best friend are in a boxing ring together, fighting for the heavyweight championship. Warner Bros. adds a near swing and a miss to the popular Rocky inspired movie series “Creed.” However, it’s not your average “lovers to enemies” story. 

Hitting the big screen earlier this month, “Creed III” is the third longest and last movie from the Michael B. Jordan directed series. The movie continues the series after Creed wins the heavyweight boxing championship in the previous movie “Creed II,” taking a step back from boxing, and going on to live his life happily. Or so we thought. 

The story picks up pretty fast in the beginning. After Creed goes to the store he runs into an old best friend from his early childhood. They cohesively introduce new characters while still developing older ones. Rocky and Creed fans were excited for another action-packed sports drama but were let down at the fact that Sylvester Stallone, who played Rocky, wasn’t in the new movie. The reactions from the online audience vary but it does make the film feel slightly empty. Stallone claimed he was not the biggest fan of Creed’s III creative direction. Although the acting and fighting made it easier to sit through and watch, the predictable bland writing made it hard to follow along. 

One other thing they did right was creatively disguising the antagonist Jonathan Majors who plays “Dame” as a friend at first. They dig deep into Creed’s past by giving various flashbacks from experiences that played a role in shaping their friendship. Majors does a respectable job in playing the “best-friend turned enemy” role in this movie. I do believe the writing for the relationship between Creed and Dame was done cleverly at first. However, as the plot develops the relationship between Creed and Dame becomes hostile and the writing weakens. 

On the contrary, the acting was top notch and made up for the lack of good plot writing. You could tell the actors such as Majors and Jordan prepared and trained for the roles they played. Fans on Instagram could witness Jordan’s progress as he would post various clips and photos of him in a boxing gym. I appreciated the exercises and routines they practiced before and during the movie’s production.  

The story and emotional connection between Creed and his family also felt a little unauthentic at times. Whenever Bianca, who was played by Tessa Thompson, came on the screen it felt like a filler scene and didn’t promote or add to the main story. 

I am not a die-hard fan of Creed movies but the movie writing just felt weaker when going back and watching the previous movies. A third movie was pushing it and this plot was an interesting direction to go in after the previous Creed. Overall, it still had its good moments and was an enjoyable watch.