Should I Actually Watch This? This is the question we all ask when the next big movie comes out. In this review, Cosmo will answer that question for you, without giving the whole thing away.
After watching Creed II, I've come to the conclusion that I am not much for boxing. Deep down inside I’ve always known this fact, but this movie confirmed it. That’s because, even more than in its predecessor, the sport has enabled Creed II's eponymous hero to embody certain elements of toxic masculinity without judgment.
It’s a boxing movie that we’re told has “heart,” a word coach Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) uses a lot in the film. "Listen to your heart," he keeps telling Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan), who’s determined to defend his championship from Viktor Drago (Florian Munteanu), whose father Ivan (Dolph Lundgren) defeated Adonis’ dad in the match that killed him back in 1985’s Rocky IV. Adonis has some seriously unresolved issues about how his father’s death permanently devastated him and his mom Mary Anne (Phylicia Rashad) and attempts to use this fight with Viktor to settle a score.
So right away, the two opponents—Adonis and Viktor—are established to have major daddy hang-ups. Viktor is also fighting to reclaim the title for the sake of his dad, whose own was stripped by Rocky himself in 1990’s Rocky V. This means everything that happens in Creed II is dependent on how these two male fighters choose to define their own machismo and protect their paternal legacies. Even Rocky talks about his estranged relationship with his son. These themes of masculinity are so oppressive that they relegate everything else that happens in the film—including the fact that Adonis and Bianca (Tessa Thompson) are expecting a baby—to the background.
I understand. Creed II is written with male audiences in mind and is supposed to carry the legacy of all previous Rocky movies. The franchise is all about men hashing out their feelings by knocking each other around in a literal blood sport. But it’s hard not to interrogate that within today’s political dialogue. For example, Adonis chooses to step into the ring with Viktor, who’s armed with nothing but rage and a cinder block where his human body should go. That’s not to say that Adonis can’t hold his own in a fight—because heaven forbid anyone, including Bianca, tries to question that.
We’ve all seen him in the trailer outpacing a car as his sweaty, bulging muscles glisten under the hot sun and appropriately drooled because a) he looks damn good and b) we’re expected to root for—and unconditionally support—his masculinity, no matter how it impacts the women in his life. But this doesn’t leave much space to have an honest conversation about the fact that Adonis, a soon-to-be father, chooses to risk his life in a fight he’s solely doing to maintain his manly appeal in the public forum—despite having a family to take care of. He deliberately jeopardizes his personal relationships just so Viktor will stop trash talking him on live TV and so that he can be the man his father never had the chance to become. It’s clear his relationships with men are a greater motivator for him than both Bianca and Mary Anne, who are given no choice but to honor his commitment.
It’s pure selfishness that drives Adonis to ignore his family’s concerns. At one point, while trying to convince Bianca what abandoning this fight would do to him, he tells her that she wouldn’t want anyone to steer her away from what she’s passionate about either. Mind you, this is a woman who put her singing career on the back burner for a bit as she carries his baby—while he runs off to fight and leaves her sick with worry. These are the sacrifices women are expected to make that men often refuses to even consider. And don’t even get me started on the scene when Adonis is watching baby Amara for a few hours while Bianca returns to the recording studio and he CAN BARELY HANDLE IT. She starts fussing, as babies do, and his only response is to go to the boxing gym so that he can mellow out—and takes her with him. Oh Adonis, you’re fine and all, but at some point you’ve got to adhere to the needs of the women in your life, including your daughter.
We’re not supposed to really think about any of this as we’re watching the film. Director Steven Caple Jr. and screenwriters Stallone and Juel Taylor present a glossy, traditionally masculine, yet sort of sentimental love story that’s less about the romance between Bianca and Adonis than it is about the relationship between Adonis and his late dad—and how he confronts what he feels has been missing throughout his life. The fight scenes are appropriately intense and amazingly choreographed, and the performances are all solid, making it an overall enjoyable experience. Still, I wonder what it would have been like had if Creed II had a bit more heart, and not just thrown that word around.
