Cinemavenger

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Creed II

The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that Creed, for lack of a better term, was good.  Creed was right.  Creed worked.  Creed clarified, cut through, and captured the essence of the evolution of the Rocky franchise.  Creed II?  Not so much.

It's puntastic that the best way to convey the epic mediocrity of this movie is to call it by its true name, Creed II: Cruise Control.

What if you made a boxing movie and forgot to put in the boxing?  Or, aside from one training montage, anything vaguely related to boxing?  It's assmazing how much a boxing movie resembles a fourth tier Hallmark flick when you leave out the fucking boxing.

Just like Star Trek brought back one of its greatest villains, Khan, to boost the reboot's sophomore release, Creed brings back Ivan Drago (Dolph "Jimbo And Kearney" Lundgren).  Because their combined age requires commas, Drago and Rocky (Sylvester "Sly Boots" Stallone) aren't allowed to fight other than by proxy.  Apollo Creed's kid, Adonis (Michael B. "Michael" Jordan), has to take on Drago's wrecking machine of an offspring, Viktor ("The Picture Of" Florian Munteanu).

They fight twice, and the matches aren't all that long.  Which means the rest of Creed II is free to explore the edge-of-your-seat excitement of Adonis knocking up his girlfriend, Bianca (Tessa "My Patience" Thompson), Rocky talking to Adrian at her grave, Rocky and Adonis splitting up the band, Rocky and Adonis getting the band back together, and Drago sneering at people running up the steps at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

I wonder what they'll cook up for the next one?  They could just keep going backward in the Rocky canon and have Adonis fight Clubber Lang's kid.  Then Adonis could fight the ghost of his dead dad and win.  Then they could fight again, and Adonis would lose.

Let's just be thankful that Creed II doesn't make Rocky V look like Rocky II.

November 23, 2018