A heavy hitter with weak acting

Rating: 1/10 (16 February 2019)

I want to start by saying I love the Rocky franchise. I think Stallone is a fantastic writer and director and I think he did a spectacular job in this film despite what he had to work with.
The story has a powerful premise that is completely missed by the acting. Instead of this being about Apollo Creed, and the death at the hands of Drago, that should have sparked a bitter rivalry between their sons...there was almost zero tension between them. What we got was a very small glimpse into the life of Drago's son, and Drago himself, and a bland story about Creed's son and his girlfriend and having a baby with some hearing issues to try and pull at heart strings. Basically all the growing up Adonis did in the first Creed is completely out the window so he can fight Drago's son, and his reasons for wanting it are completely unrealistic, it's not like he knew his dad so there's no hatred or revenge for what happened, like at all.
This is nothing like the original Rocky series, not at all. This was barely memorable and I'll be honest, I don't even remember half of the characters names from this movie because they're so forgetable. Creed was full of character, rocky was too, so was mickey and even adrian and paulie. There was just nothing there!
I also want to mention how weak the boxing scenes were. In rocky you can tell the punches were really far away and telegraphed, but the actors did such an amazing job at making it look and feel real specially in the second movie and beyond. You can tell Jordan is not a fighter, at all. Drago's son looked the part and it seemed like he was probably a fighter, but it was completely eclipsed by Jordan's lack of skill and believablitiy.
Overall this movie really surprises me with the high rating reviews. I wasn't impressed with the first movie either because of how weak Jordan's acting is, I think Creed deserved a better actor in honor of Carl Weathers and his brilliant performance. This movie just made me want to watch rocky again and forget it even exists.
This movie SHOULD have been better, but it falls flat.