A grotesque abomination featuring one of the worst lead performances in recent memory

Rating: 1/10 (13 April 2020)

If ever a film proved how important a good writer is, this was it. Creed (written by Ryan Coogler) was a surprisingly impressive regeneration of the Rocky movies and was generally lauded by critics and Rocky fans alike. Creed II (written by Stallone and Juel Taylor) however, is an absolute disgrace and should be wiped from the Hollywood hard drive.
Firstly, there was absolutely no reason to make this movie other than sheer greed. There were no loose ends to tie up and no characters to conclude.
The fight scenes, which were pretty good in Creed, regress back to the nonsense we saw in the original Rocky sequels. Hideous choreography and woefully unrealistic sparring sequences. And on top of that we had the commentators spoon-feeding the viewers what they should be feeling about every single exchange.
Something that plagued the early Rocky movies was the endless dialogue about nothing. It was little more than pop psychology being vomited onto the screen to be lapped up by head-nodding simpletons. This returned in full-force here and was not helped by the fact that the two main protagonists were the hopeless Tessa Thompson and the inexcusably bland Michael B Jordan.
How this guy landed such a huge role is a mystery to me. He was just about acceptable in the first movie where his age and naivety somewhat explained his insipid demeanour. But in this follow-up, which calls on him to step up and carry the film, he falls woefully short. And if the writers thought giving these two no-marks a deaf baby was going to make people resonate with them they were wrong. That was a desperate and pointless attempt at sentimentality and it backfired horribly.
I can't express how appalled I am that this was even made, let alone how bad it was. Stallone went out gracefully in Creed and the Rocky character was complete. Yet for some unknown reason, he couldn't help but yank back the scripts and churn out another schmaltzy mess.
One of the worst films I have ever had the misfortune to watch.