Better than almost all other Rocky sequels!!!!

Rating: 8/10 (25 November 2018)

3 years ago when Creed was released I was hoping that it wouldn't ruin how Sylvester Stallone had presumably said goodbye to his beloved character in ROCKY BALBOA. Thankfully, I was proven wrong. Not only did it meet low expectations, it exceeded them with flying colors. It didn't reinvent the Rocky formula but it gave it much needed shot in the arm
Ryan Coogler created a film that could stand on it's own, but fit perfectly into the Rocky universe.
Now comes Creed II. It is a tad less effective than Creed but it is better than most of the Rocky sequels. It again respects the formula but is grounded by a very good performances by the cast but especially Michael B. Jordan as Adonis Creed. Both Creed films belong to him, as they should. He is a terrific actor. Sylvester Stallone wrote this sequel but makes the great decision to keep the story about Adonis, but Rocky plays a important role.
I hate giving spoilers but most people already k om that Creed II is about Adonis being challenged to fight the son of Ivan Drago, the man who killed Apollo in ROCKY IV. Dolph Lundgren is back as Ivan and gives I believe as good as a performance as he can as a bitter man that lost everything after losing to Rocky. He is training his son Viktor to be the champion he failed to be. All of this is fairly predictable but this time the script gives Ivan Drago some humanity that was not at all present in ROCKY IV. Obviously, Adonis takes the fight feeling that he has to. He has still not been able to construct a legacy that his father had left. He asks his girlfriend Bianca to marry him and shortly after the marry they find out that she is pregnant. The chemistry between Michael B. Jordan and Tessa Thompson that was so good in the first film is again present here. The great thing about the first CREED was that the quiet, more character driven scenes made the film better. That is the case again even though this sequel is more formulaic. Sylvester Stallone proves again here that he is capable of bringing something to his Rocky character that had been lost in most of the previous sequels. He plays him with wisdom but also with regret.
All of this of course comes with the obligatory fight and training sequences which are done very well again. They are not as showy as the other sequels but because we care about Adonis they are really effective. Like Ryan Coogler before him, director Stephen Caple Jr. puts a lot of emphasis on his characters as well as the fight sequences. If there is a misstep in Creed II is a cameo by Bridget Nielsen as Ludmilla, Ivan Drago's wife that had left him and their son due to his failure. She appears at a victory dinner for her son and comes to the final fight only to leave her son again. But, that is my only complaint. Creed II is certainly predictable lwhen it comes to the final fight, but ends on a poignant note with both Adonis and Rocky. This film is what it is, a very good sequel to a great film.