Creed III

Yes, exactly. Without Rocky, without Sylvester Stallone, it tastes like a burger without meat. Wiping out Rocky means wiping out all the past, and all the experiences that viewers lived. There was always a balance between strength and weakness in Rocky movies. They carried it very well in Creed and Creed II. But this movie lacks balance I think.

Michael B. Jordan announced that he wants to shoot a lot of Creed movies and wants to turn them into a cinematic universe. But how do you think you can do it without Rocky in it? I mean Sylvester Stallone was the backbone of that series. People went to watch Creed because of this was the continuation of Rocky films. They were seen by viewers like Rocky 7 and Rocky 8.

Yeah, it tastes like a vegan burger. But still eatable if you are hungry.

This is a real departure from other movies in the Rocky-verse. The absence of Stallone's input (ignore the 'produced by' credit to Stallone - he wasn't involved) is felt throughout the films style, writing, direction and lack of any sentimentality.

It simply doesn't feel like a Rocky/Creed movie, it's darker, more angry, more miserable and a lot less fun. But worst of all you just don't care about any of the characters...and that means no hairs on the back of your neck as you approach fight night.

On the fight, the way it was shot is very stylistic with heavy CGI and feels further removed from reality than the other movies (and hey - they weren't realistic!).

If you forget it's Creed or part of the Rocky-verse, on its own it's an 'ok' film. Stack it up against what's been before and after what was a really entertaining first and second Creed instalment/s - it's a bad movie.

Hopefully that's it now, unless Stallone gets back involved...then maybe.

The first half of Creed III was decent and the initial premise of a childhood friend opened up some interesting possibilities for the story. But it sadly wasn't developed well enough and the movie ends up feeling somewhat of a wasted opportunity. By the end, it has the feeling of one of those dime-a-dozen fighting movies that didn't quite hit the mark in any memorable way.

The actors all did a good job however, and I didn't really notice that Rocky wasn't around. It was almost refreshing to see Creed and the other characters take their first independent steps, without the guiding hand or strong presence of Stallone. Things felt promising early on in the movie and it was probably the good acting which prevented the movie from being a complete flop.

Around the half way point unfortunately cracks started to appear in the story. The childhood friend angle just wasn't used to best effect, in a convincing way. Things just descend into a series of somewhat unrealistic and almost cliched interactions between the main characters. The story sort of dwindles into mediocrity.

Overall still reasonably entertaining. Good acting, decent directing/cinematography. Fight scenes not bad. Ultimately a weak screenplay turned what could have been a good Creed movie into the least impressive one so far in the franchise.

Okay, maybe guts aren't an organ, but there are things missing in this movie. Those things and Sylvester Stallone. He's missing, and his absence is felt, when often this movie is trying so hard to make you do just that, feel.

With no heart and no guts, it's hard to do that.

The boxing scenes here feel like a video game and the non-boxing scenes feel like a Lifetime movie.

The only reason this movie is a seven and not a six, is because of the screen presence and charisma of both Michael B. Jordan and Jonathan Majors. They are incredible.

But there is no grit. No toughness. It's too glossy.

It's nice to have a running time of under two hours. It is. But this story is unbelievable with the sudden ascent of the antagonist.

With the time given, a nice Rocky montage with cheesy rock music or even rap music would've been an effective shoutout.

The movie also takes way too long to get to the root cause of the legal incident that pulled these two guys apart as young men as well.

This is the weakest Creed film by far.

In the Rockyverse it's right at the bottom there with Rocky V.

In fighting terms this portion of the Creed trilogy is remarkably underweight at weigh-in.

Wanted to like this film and to be honest i think it was a good idea to finally move away from the Rocky character- but this falls flat on its face.

The premise is good and it starts off okay but it becomes really muddled really fast. If Adonis and Dame are literally like brothers why do they have next to no chemistry? Do we root for Dame or is he just the antagonist? In all seriousness Rocky V was poor but it actually did this storyline so much better.

Training sequences and the fights were the worst across all the Rocky/Creed series- yes visually they look great but there is no feel of a boxing match, no flow, no heart pounding sense of threat or danger. The less said about the CGI sequence the better- completely deflated the climax of the fight and robbed us of any investment we had left.

If there is going to be a Creed IV, Stallone needs to have a greater involvement. Yes you can call the previous Rocky/Creed films generic and predictable but they're also crowd-pleasing and above all fun and entertaining - and at the end of the day thats what it comes down to.