Solid

Rating: 7/10 (7 December 2018)

2015's Creed gave us a soulful and original take on the Rocky universe, more closely resembling the poignancy of the 1976 original than its sequels. Creed II, however, buys fully into the idea of being a Rocky sequel: blunt force melodrama, strained relationships, numerous training montages, pride-comes-before-a-fall messaging, lots of hospital bed-side conversations, questioning legacies; it's all here. Luckily, just when the predictability seems to deliver a knock-out blow, Creed II stands itself back up with solid emotions and fantastic characters on both sides of the ring.
Adonis is presented with his "toughest fight yet" (aren't they all?) when Viktor Drago, son of Russian boxer and Apollo Creed killer Ivan Drago, emerges to challenge him to a championship fight. It's a follow-up to Rocky IV, but its story is simply a mirror of Rocky III. Neither of those sequels are particularly great, but at least in IV we're given a parallel to real-world conflicts, namely the Russian-American cold war struggle. Creed II was primed for a similar treatment, given the current state of American-Russian affairs, but instead opted for a safer, smaller story about drive and legacy.
This film does, however, continue the fruitful series-through-line of living with patriarchal expectations and breaking generational wrongs. The hot-headed and uncomfortably human Adonis is such a brave protagonist choice for this series, following the gentle, unassuming nature of Rocky.
In all the highs-and-lows of this franchise, the enduring nature of the Rocky universe is like a gift to movie-lovers. A faithful comfort food that has managed to stay vibrantly relevant for over 40 years, and one I'd be happy to continue revisiting, even if it never quite reaches the heights of Rocky or Creed again.