Creed II - An unnecessary sequel unsurprisingly misfires

The 7th instalment in the Rocky franchise was an unexpected treat and a great send off to the franchise and the character. But, of course, since that film did so well, a sequel was inevitable. This time around the film pits the titular character Adonis Creed against Viktor Drago, the son of Ivan Drago, the man who killed Adonis’ father in the ring all those years ago.

 

Already the concept is weak because it’s really unnecessary and sounds more like something a fan would pitch as an idea in the comments section on Sylvester Stallone’s Instagram.

 

A lot of what made Creed a great film was how emotional and well written it was, Adonis’ character was so believable and the people around him were honest and grounded. Creed 2 suffered a lot from not having the involvement of previous director Ryan Coogler, who knows how to flesh out character arcs, and obviously had a lot of respect for the Rocky franchise itself.

 

Viktor is supposed to be the villain of the piece, but all he’s doing is trying to make his father proud while dealing with intense pain and anguish about how his own Mother left them and their country basically disowned them after the disgrace all those years ago.

The film still focuses on Adonis, and that’s its biggest flaw, this film should have been called Drago. A really interesting way to tackle such a strange story is to focus on the other side of this story, the same way Cobra Kai focused on Johnny Lawrence’s point of view instead of Daniel Larusso’s. It would have mirrored the previous film by focusing on a character struggling with deep emotional turmoil and the hunger to create his own legacy.

 

What this desperately needed was more of Viktor and his father struggling to get by, being outcast by their country and its people, and Viktor wanting this fight, not for some unwarranted revenge, but because he, like Adonis in the previous film, needed to feel like he mattered.

 

The strange thing is throughout the film you don’t find yourself rooting for the main character the way you did in the previous film. It’s a shame they couldn’t just leave the last film to be the cliff note to the franchise because it was a beautifully executed and emotional love letter to the fans.

 

Written by Nicolas Champeaux