Category Archives: Sylvester Stallone movies

CREED III (2023) – Solid Yet Unsurprising Ninth Movie in the ROCKY Universe

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I know. I’m a sucker for boxing movies.

Especially those in the ROCKY movie universe.

And so I enjoyed CREED III (2023), the third film in the CREED series, and the ninth film in the ROCKY universe, and not just because I’m a sucker for these movies. It’s a pretty darn good movie in its own right. That being said, it’s also the ninth movie in a series, and so one knock against the film is it is exceedingly predictable.

CREED III is the first movie in the ROCKY movie world not to feature Sylvester Stallone as Rocky, and the movie is strong enough to keep Rocky from being missed. But it does feature Michael B. Jordan once again in the lead role as Adonis Creed, the son of Apollo Creed, who was Rocky’s first opponent in the first ROCKY movie back in 1976. Apollo and Rocky eventually become best friends, but then Apollo was killed in the ring in ROCKY IV (1985) by Soviet fighter Ivan Drago. In CREED II (2018), Adonis defeats Drago’s son in a title match that was very personal for Adonis, as he was fighting for his deceased father.

Jordan has been excellent in all three CREED movies, and here he works behind the camera as well for the first time, as he makes his directorial debut with CREED III. And in what is probably the best part of the movie, he is joined in the cast by Jonathan Majors who plays Adonis’ childhood friend and now opponent, Damian Anderson. Jordan and Majors are two of the more dynamic actors working today, and their combined presence in this movie lifts it to a higher level.

In CREED III, Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan) has retired from boxing, going out on top as heavyweight champion, his thinking being to step away from the sport to enjoy his life with his wife Bianca (Tessa Thompson) and their young daughter Amara (Mila Davis-Kent). Adonis also runs the local gym with his former trainer Stitch (Jacob “Stitch” Duran), where they train and represent the current champion Felix Chavez (Jose Benvidez). Life is good.

But things change when Adonis’ childhood best buddy Damian (Jonathan Majors) shows up at the gym, having just been released from prison, where he has spent the past eighteen years of his life. When they were kids, they both boxed, and Damian was the better of the two and as a teenager was already considered a boxer with high promise. But prison changed all that. While Adonis offers to help Damian any way he can, Damian makes it clear he wants only one thing: a shot at the title, a shot he says he was denied because of his prison sentence.

Adonis tells him that’s impossible, as he’s not even a pro, but Damian reminds him that one, Adonis himself got the title shot by unconventional means, and two, his own father Apollo, gave a nobody fighter named Rocky Balboa a title shot out of nowhere. Adonis can’t deny that this is true, and he begins to be open to the possibility. Making things even more complicated, and driving Adonis to help Damian, is the fact that he is plagued by tremendous guilt. He was there the night Damian was arrested, and he too, was involved. But only Damain got caught. And Adonis, wanting to forget that traumatic chapter in his life, never reached out to Damian.

When a freak accident injures Felix Chavez’s next opponent, Adonis suggests that he fight Damian instead. He tells Felix to do his job, and if he wipes the floor with the much older Damian, so be it. And he is also doing right by his friend, Damian, by giving him his much sought after title shot.

Of course, as expected, Damian shocks the boxing world and wins, and amid some more revelations, becomes somewhat less of an admirable person, publicly taunting and insulting Adonis, who realizes there is only one true way to shut his friend up and restore his own honor, which is to get back into the boxing ring and take on his former friend.

As stories go, as I said, the one told in CREED III is pretty predictable. There are no surprises. The screenplay by Keenan Coogler, Ryan Coogler, and Zach Baylin offers a by-the-numbers boxing story. You know who is going to win every time. But on the plus side, away from the boxing elements, the personal story of Adonis and Damian’s friendship is well-done and is the best part of the movie, and it’s well-acted by two phenomenal actors, Michael B. Jordan and Jonathan Majors. Adonis is burdened by heavy guilt, and rightly so. He ran away and let his friend get arrested. Other characters in the story continually tell Adonis that he’s not a bad person, that he can’t be held accountable for decisions made before he was an adult, which is true, but it’s a bitter pill for Adonis himself to swallow. He knows what he did, or in this case, didn’t do.

This part of the story works well, not only because it is well-written and well-acted, but because in this ninth movie in the ROCKY universe, it’s pretty darn refreshing! It’s new territory! But sadly, the boxing parts aren’t refreshing at all. The movie doesn’t make any bold decisions in that department. Which is too bad because the ROCKY series began with a bold choice. It’s easy to forget that in the first ROCKY, Rocky lost, and what he takes away from that title bout was that he stood toe to toe with the champion for fifteen rounds. But he lost.

Zach Baylin also wrote the screenplay for the much-heralded KING RICHARD (2021).

The other strength on display here are the two performances by Michael B. Jordan and Jonathan Majors. Jordan has been excellent as Adonis Creed in all three CREED movies, and he’s very good here yet again. Jordan is a fun actor to watch. He exudes sincerity, intensity, and authenticity.

We just saw Jonathan Majors as the villain Kang the Conqueror in ANT-MAN AND THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA (2023), a role he’s set to reprise in the upcoming AVENGERS movies. Majors has also made impressions in the movies THE HARDER THEY FALL (2021) and DA 5 BLOODS (2020). He’s formidable here as Damian, and he and Jordan interact well together. They share many fine moments in the movie, and one of the best moments is their conversation after their title bout at the end of the movie.

Tessa Thompson plays Bianca Creed for the third time, and she’s fine once again, although the movie largely focuses on Adonis and Damian. Young Mila Davis-Kent is excellent as Adonis’ and Bianca’s deaf daughter, Amara.

As a director, Michael B. Jordan acquits himself well. The boxing sequences, as predictable as they are, are well done. In fact, he gets metaphorical during the final bout between Adonis and Damian, as at one point we see them fighting in a giant cage inside a cold empty nightmarish stadium. The imagery here works really well. Jordan also makes the wise decision to keep this one from being overlong, as it clocks in at just under two hours. These days when so many movies are unnecessarily pushing the three-hour mark, Jordan’s decision to keep this movie at a respectable length is a good one.

In terms of the three CREED movies, the first one CREED (2015) remains the best, but CREED III is better than CREED II (2018), and so CREED III ranks in the middle of the Adonis Creed trilogy.

Overall, CREED III is a very good movie featuring two strong performances by two very talented actors, Michael B. Jordan and Jonathan Majors and a decent storyline involving two childhood friends who square off against each other in the ring as adults. The only thing preventing this from being a knockout is its predictability.

Before you sit down to watch this one, you probably have a good idea as to who is going to win the fights in this movie.

And you’d be right.

I give CREED III a solid yet unsurprising three stars.

—END—

RATING SYSTEM

Four stars – Perfect, Top of the line

Three and a half stars- Excellent

Three stars – Very Good

Two and a half stars – Good

Two Stars – Fair

One and a half stars – Pretty Weak

One star- Poor

Zero stars – Awful

SAMARITAN (2022) – Sylvester Stallone Kicks Butt as Grizzled Gray Superhero

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Sylvester Stallone as a superhero?

Who’s he playing? Senior Citizen Man?

And with that, we’ll dispense with the “old people” jokes for the rest of this column. I just think it’s funny that in this day and age, between CGI effects in the movies, and the healthy regimens of many actors who like Stallone are aging much better than previous generations, you can tell a story about an older superhero with a 76-year-old actor in the lead role and have it be believable! This is a good thing.

SAMARITAN (2022) opens with young Sam Cleary (Javon “Wanna” Walton) recounting the story of twin brother superheroes Samaritan and Nemesis, who fought to the death twenty years earlier when Nemesis went rogue and tried to kill his good superhero brother Samaritan with a special hammer he forged just for the job. Both men were killed in a massive explosion inside a warehouse, but Sam doesn’t believe Samaritan died. He believes the former superhero is just hiding out somewhere.

And when the garbage man named Joe (Sylvester Stallone) who lives in the apartment across the street from him shows up one day and saves him from some gang member bullies, showing off superior strength and fighting skills, Sam believes he has found his man. He believes Joe is Samaritan.

Meanwhile, local gang leader Cyrus (Pilou Asbaek) discovers Nemesis’ hammer and mask and decides to use them both as he begins a crime campaign to wreak havoc and cause chaos across the city. Sam is part of this gang, and Cyrus has taken a liking to him, but when things get more dangerous and Sam’s life is endangered, he turns to Joe for help, and he gets it, but not in the way he was expecting.

As superhero stories go, the one told in SAMARITAN, now playing in theaters and also available to watch for free on Amazon Prime Video, is pretty standard. It didn’t really do all that much for me, and the longer it went on, the less I was interested in it. Also, the big reveal at the end wasn’t that hard to figure out, because there were enough clues in place earlier in this one to see how it was going to go down. Bragi F. Schut wrote the screenplay, and other than a few good lines for Stallone, it’s nothing to write home about.

I like Stallone, and admittedly he’s the main reason I wanted to see this move, and on that front, it wasn’t a disappointment because he’s pretty darn good in the role. Of course, he’s been doing this for so long he can probably do it in his sleep, but that doesn’t mean it’s not another enjoyable performance. From Rocky to Rambo to a myriad of other action film performances, Sylvester Stallone has a presence and persona that serves him well. He’s the working man’s action hero, the blue-collar tough guy, who is more at home dishing out wisdom and advice over wise-cracking one-liners.

And he’s at it again here. Joe becomes a mentor and father figure to Sam, and late in the movie schools the boy on the nuances of good and bad in the world, of how people mistakenly believe it’s all about good vs. evil. Joe tells Sam it’s not that clear cut because there is good and bad in every person, and it’s all about the choices people make. It also goes without saying that Stallone is believable here as the grizzled superhero, as he efficiently kicks the butts of much younger villainous foes.

This also isn’t the first foray into superheroes for the Rocky/Rambo star. He provided the voice for the CGI-created King Shark in the hilarious THE SUICIDE SQUAD (2021), a fun performance in a very fun movie. He was less memorable in a small role in Marvel’s GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2 (2017) as Stakar Ogord. Stallone is currently working on THE EXPENDABLES 4, due out next year, a series I’ve enjoyed.

I can’t say that I was all that impressed with Javon “Wanna” Walton as Sam. There was something rather annoying about his personality.

Pilou Asbaek is decent as the villain, Cyrus. He’s had plenty of practice. He’s played similar tough guy roles in films like OUTSIDE THE WIRE (2021) and GHOST IN THE SHELL (2017). He also played Euron Greyjoy on GAME OF THRONES (2016-2019).

I did enjoy Dascha Polanco as Sam’s mom Tiffany. She makes for a memorable hard-working single mom who because of her job can’t be there as often as she likes for her son. She’s as tough as nails, a side of her which she gets to show off later in the story.

Moises Arias also stands out as an annoying gang member named Reza who is a constant thorn in Sam’s side.

Directed by Julius Avery, SAMARITAN is a decent superhero movie, but not a great one. Its look is standard and didn’t offer anything I hadn’t seen before, and its action sequences, while okay, aren’t mind-blowing. It’s ultimately successful for a couple of reasons. It tells a simple straightforward story and doesn’t get lost in a convoluted muddled mess of storytelling like some of the recent Marvel entries, films like DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS (2021) and THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER (2022). It’s also not overlong and doesn’t get boring.

Most of all, it benefits from the presence of Sylvester Stallone. Watching him play the lead role was a real treat. It’s like ROCKY meets UNBREAKABLE (2000).

He’ll not only go the distance; he won’t even be down for the count. Not ever.

Yo, Adrian! Look, no black eyes!

—END–

CHOOSE OR DIE (2022) – Horror Movie About Cursed Video Game Has no Basis in Reality

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It’s been a while since I’ve watched a movie that just hasn’t worked for me. 2022 has so far been a good year for movies. I feel as if I have watched one movie after another that I’ve liked.

Well, that streak has come to an end with CHOOSE OR DIE (2022), a new horror movie on Netflix that is pretty much the first “bad” movie I’ve seen this year.

CHOOSE OR DIE actually has a fairly interesting premise, as it’s about an old 1980s video game discovered in the here and now, and when it’s dusted off and played, it has more than just fun and games in store for its players.

The movie even gets off to an exhilarating start when we meet disgruntled Hal (Eddie Marsan) being a hermit in his home, hiding from his arguing wife and son. Hal is something of a 1980s connoisseur, collecting odds and ends from the decade and obviously still wishing he were living in the age of big hair and Stallone and Schwarzenegger movies. Hal recently added the forgotten video game “Choose or Die” to his collection, and when he plays it, he finds that bizarre things start happening in real time. When asked the question, “Her ear or his tongue?”— choose or die!— he sees images on the screen which calls to mind his wife and son. As he runs to check on them, he discovers his wife with a knife and his son bleeding profusely from his mouth.

The action then switches to friends Kayla (Iola Evans) and Isaac (Asa Butterfield). Kayla lives in a rundown apartment with her ailing mother, depressed over the drowning death of her son and Kayla’s brother, and Kayla rather than pursuing her college education is working odd jobs to support her mother. She also finds and brings old computer components to Isaac who refurbishes them and pays her for her troubles. Of course, among the stuff which Kayla brings Isaac is a copy of Choose or Die, and when they activate it, yes, strange things begin to happen. It seems this cursed video game has the ability to affect reality and maim and kill people in the process. How does it do this? Well, it’s a cursed video game, silly! The movie offers nothing more in explanation than that.

As Kayla and Isaac attempt to survive and figure out how to defeat the game, they eventually find Hal and learn from him that as part of the deal to save his family, he had to make copies of the game and send them out into the world. So watch out! Choose or Die could be coming to a yard sale near you!

I enjoyed the premise of this one, but the movie does absolutely nothing with it other than provide an upbeat electronic 80s music score by Liam Howlett, which for me, was the best part of the movie.

The screenplay by Simon Allen, Matthew James Wilkinson, and director Toby Meakins introduces the cursed video game idea and then struggles to make sense of it and worse, take full advantage of it. No explanation is given other than the game is cursed. How it can affect reality is never explained. You just have to suspend disbelief. I would be willing to do this if everything else about this one was firing on all cylinders, but that isn’t the case.

The story also suffers from “it was just a dream syndrome.” Not that anything that happens here is just a dream, but the end effect is the same. For instance, when Kayla sits in a lonely diner, and the game takes over reality, awful things begin to happen to the waitress, as she begins to chew on broken glass and can’t stop, but before we see how this scene ultimately plays out, the action cuts away, and we find Kayla in bed waking up. No, it wasn’t a dream, but we never learn what really happens to that waitress other than she was “injured.” In short, the film sets up some gruesome scenes but never goes for the jugular. And I’m not talking about not showing us graphic scenes of violence, but rather, not allowing the audience to feel the pain of the moment. A lot of emotion is lost in this one as scenes end before they should, and the audience is spared, akin to waking up from a nightmare.

The characters really aren’t developed, other than Kayla, and her story isn’t all that interesting. Yes, she is supporting her ill mother, and this is commendable, but there’s just not much there.

The explanation regarding the origin of the curse behind Choose or Die is ambiguous, not that exciting, and ultimately unsatisfying.

Iola Evans is okay in the lead role as Kayla, but she doesn’t have a lot to work with as she’s pretty much a one note character. The same can be said for Asa Butterfield as Isaac, who’s looking all grown up here. I still picture him as the young lead in Martin Scorsese’s HUGO (2011).

The best performance in the movie belongs to Eddie Marsan with his brief stint as Hal, the man who is in love with the 1980s, but it’s not much more than a cameo. Marsan is a terrific actor who has been memorable in such films as THEIR FINEST (2016) and ATOMIC BLONDE (2017) to name just a couple.

And in the most inspired bit of casting, Robert Englund, Freddy Krueger himself, plays himself here, as Englund provides a promo voice for the game. Sadly, Englund never actually appears in the movie.

Director Toby Meakins sets up some frightening scenes, but none of them go for the throat. A couple come close, like the chewing on glass sequence, but for the most part the scares just don’t come through as frighteningly as one would expect.

The biggest knock against this one though is its video game curse just doesn’t hold water. The game may be able to change reality, but as a plot point, it has no basis in reality.

Compared to the subtle and superior MASTER (2022) which I saw earlier this year, CHOOSE OR DIE is an inferior and ineffective horror movie that doesn’t even work as a 1980s’ homage, as the story takes place in the here and now.

When it comes to CHOOSE OR DIE, the choice is easy.

Choose.

A different movie.

—END—

SWEET GIRL (2021) – Jason Momoa Action Flick Doesn’t Satisfy

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Let’s cut right to the chase.

I didn’t like SWEET GIRL (2021) all that much. In fact, it’s one of the least satisfying action movies I’ve seen this year.

I was interested in seeing SWEET GIRL, which is now streaming on Netflix, because it starred Jason Momoa, who I like a lot, but not even Momoa could save this dud. Truth be told, Momoa’s lackluster performance is actually one of the reasons this one is a dud. But the biggest reason this movie falters is it has a story that doesn’t resonate, that comes off as weird at times, and that sports a major plot twist two thirds of the way in that doesn’t work at all.

In SWEET GIRL, Ray Cooper (Jason Momoa) is desperate to save his wife Amanda (Adria Arjona) who is losing her battle with cancer, all the while trying to care for his teenage daughter Rachel (Isabela Merced). When an experimental drug is pulled from the market before it could be used on Amanda, Ray is livid, especially when he learns it was pulled by a pharmaceutical company strictly as part of a business decision. When Ray sees the CEO of the company on a TV news program, he calls in, and he threatens the CEO on the air if his wife should die. Well, Amanda dies, and… yup, Ray turns into a vigilante against the big drug companies.

Now, I don’t like these companies any more than the next guy, but there was something forced about this plot point of Ray going ballistic against a pharmaceutical company that made a slimy decision to pull a drug that may or may not have saved his wife’s life. The way it was handled in this movie made Ray seem more of an unhinged nutcase than a vigilante with a reason to kill. Not that it matters, because the plot quickly pivots. See, there’s more going on here than Ray knows. Yup, there’s more powerful people involved, and Ray learns this firsthand when a hitman named Santos (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) shows up and starts killing the same people Ray is after.

The rest of the movie follows Ray and his daughter Rachel as they seek answers while trying to stay ahead of a pair of FBI agents and the murderous Santos. Until that is the big plot twist, which for me, didn’t work at all. It would have if Rachel’s character had been developed more. As a result, SWEET GIRL suffers from not being able to make up its mind over whether this is an action flick about Ray, about Rachel, or about both of them. As it stands, it doesn’t do a good job with any of these options.

As I said, I’m a fan of Jason Momoa. I enjoy him as Aquaman, and he was a memorable villain in the Sylvester Stallone actioner BULLET TO THE HEAD (2012). There’s a charisma about him that’s difficult to deny. Except, that charisma wasn’t really on display here in SWEET GIRL. Honestly, Momoa seemed so subdued here it was almost as if he were sleepwalking through the role.

Nor was I overly impressed with Isabela Merced as Rachel.

The best performance in the movie belongs to Manuel Garcia-Rulfo as the unstoppable cold-hearted assassin Santos. He’s so unstoppable that the way the story chooses to finally stop him is laughable.

SWEET GIRL was directed by Brian Andrew Mendoza. And while there were some decent action and chase scenes, they weren’t enough to lift this movie to something I’d want to watch again.

SWEET GIRL is nowhere near as good as the recent action movies GUNPOWDER MILKSHAKE (2021) and JOLT (2021).

The biggest culprit is the screenplay by Greg Hurwitz and Philip Eisner. It couldn’t figure out what story it wanted to tell. Was this Ray’s story? Rachel’s? And the one they eventually settle on seems to have been the wrong one. I mean, you have an action film starring Jason Momoa, and he’s not around to finish this one off? That’s a decision that just didn’t work for me.

And the other big problem the film has is when it decides to feature Rachel more as the action hero, it’s simply not as believable. Unlike last year’s thriller BECKY (2020), which starred Lulu Wilson as a teenage girl who seeks vengeance against a group of convicts who hold her family hostage, where Wilson took that character and made you believe that she could kick the crap out of the adult baddies in that one, here in SWEET GIRL, there’s simply not that same level of believablility.

As an action thriller, SWEET GIRL simply doesn’t satisfy.

—END—

THE SUICIDE SQUAD (2021) – James Gunn’s Sequel Best Superhero Movie of the Year So Far

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The burning question behind THE SUICIDE SQUAD (2021), the follow-up to SUICIDE SQUAD (2016) is: is it a reboot or is it a sequel?

The promos and folks behind this flick have played coy with this information, my thoughts being that if they committed to calling this one a sequel, it would have had a stigma attached to it before it even played to an audience. It’s also the reason I’m guessing this one wasn’t called SUICIDE SQUAD 2. But I’m here to say without any secrecy that THE SUICIDE SQUAD is definitely a sequel.

And under the guidance of writer/director James Gunn, who was not attached to the first film, THE SUICIDE SQUAD is way way better than the first movie. In fact, THE SUICIDE SQUAD is so good it’s my favorite superhero movie of the year. Which I know isn’t saying a whole heck of a lot because I simply haven’t seen a lot of superhero movies this year, but it’s an exceptional movie, entertaining and fun from start to finish.

The first SUICIDE SQUAD (2016), which hails from the DC Universe, centered around a group of supervillains who were coerced into acting as superheroes, doing the dirtiest of jobs, the type that the authorities wouldn’t even think about approaching the likes of Batman and Superman to carry out. In short, these guys have no respect. They also have no choice, because their “handler”, the icy cold Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) injects implants into these dudes so that if they go off mission, they are killed instantly.

The first film was a mixed bag. Decent characters, pretty lame story, so-so writing, a very good performance by Will Smith, but it was Margot Robbie who stole the movie with her insanely electrifying performance as Harley Quinn.

Robbie returns as Quinn for THE SUICIDE SQUAD, and within the first few minutes of this second movie, the script jumps out at you with superior writing and just like that, you know you’re in for a helluva ride and a far better experience than what you had in the first film.

And that’s because THE SUICIDE SQUAD was written and directed by James Gunn, the man behind Marvel’s GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY movies. Those films were highly entertaining, the writing comedic, and the exchanges between the characters laugh inducing. It’s the same here in THE SUICIDE SQUAD, only this flick is rated R, so the violence is bloodier, and the body count— including the “good” guys, is much higher.

The film opens as Amanda Waller sends the suicide squad on another deadly mission, this time infiltrating the island of Corto Maltese. There has just been a deadly coup, and the military generals on the island have executed the ruling family and have taken over. Normally, this wouldn’t interest the United States all that much, but the reason the events on Corto Maltese matter is the previous government had access to a super secret weapon with alien origins, and if it falls into the hands of the new ruling generals, could be used to harm countless innocents. So, the suicide squad’s mission is to infiltrate the island, get past the army, break into the secret lab, and destroy the alien weapon.

Easy-peasy, right? Wrong! They’re not called the suicide squad for nothing!

And they’re not the only suicide squad in town. For this mission, Waller also sends in a second team, led by Bloodsport (Idris Elba). This team also includes Peacemaker (John Cena), Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior), Polka-Dot Man (David Dastmalchian), and King Shark (voiced by Sylvester Stallone).

The less said about the plot of THE SUICIDE SQUAD the better. There are lots of twists and turns, and the less you know going in, the more fun you’ll have with this one. I will say that what I just described takes place in the opening moments of the movie. After that, it’s a roller coaster thrill ride that simply doesn’t stop as these misfit superheroes converge on the island and attempt to thwart both an aggressive military regime and a deadly alien technology.

The script by James Gunn is so good and so well-written, that it is levels above the plot description. It takes a standard story and turns it into something really memorable. The dialogue and banter between the characters is off the charts entertaining.

Gunn’s direction is equally as good. The movie is chock full of cool scenes and moments. THE SUICIDE SQUAD is not afraid to take its time when getting a laugh. There are some moments where the characters are allowed to react to things that will have you laughing out loud. And the action scenes don’t disappoint. Even kaiju fans won’t be disappointed.

Margot Robbie is excellent once again as Harley Quinn. Yet, she doesn’t dominate this movie like she did the first one, and that’s because Gunn has written equally compelling characters. So, Robbie is every bit as effective as she was the first time around, except this time, she’s sharing the screen with characters who are every bit as interesting as she is.

Idris Elba as Bloodsport is probably the central character in this sequel. Elba carries this movie. He makes Bloodsport the noble assassin who says he’s loyal to no one, but inside, he’s a leader who takes care of those who work for him.

His relationship with Ratcatcher 2, played by Daniela Melchior, is one of the best parts of the film. Melchior is excellent as Ratcatcher 2, a young woman who can control rats. She was one of my favorite characters in this movie, and her relationship with Bloodsport is a big reason why. Especially because she reminds Bloodsport of his daughter, and he vows to protect her, and she gives it right back saying she’ll be the one protecting him. Both prove to be true.

Both John Cena as Peacemaker and David Dastmalchian as Polka-Dot Man have their moments and make for a couple of really interesting characters. And in a bit of inspired casting, Sylvester Stallone is hilarious lending his voice to the slow witted and very hungry King Shark.

Joel Kinnaman is also memorable as Colonel Rick Flag, reprising the role he played in the first movie. He’s far better in this movie, as is Viola Davis as Amanda Waller. The characterizations are just that clearer, they have more depth, and as a result the audience understands them better.

And like a lot of superhero movies these days, the villains in THE SUICIDE SQUAD are of less consequence, because so much of the focus is on the flawed heroes themselves. That being said, Peter Capaldi enjoys many scene stealing moments as the nefarious Thinker. He’s the closest thing to a main villain the movie has.

There are so many memorable moments in THE SUICIDE SQUAD, especially little ones, which hammer home themes like governments with secrets and the cost of keeping them. Peacemaker’s mantra is he loves peace but he’ll kill anyone to keep it. There’s symbolism with Ratcatcher 2’s rats, described as the lowest and most hated of all creatures, but even rats have value. And not to be a spoiler (so skip the next line if you don’t want to know anything about the film’s conclusion), but the final line of the alien creature was that it was happy floating in space looking at the stars, the implication being that yet again it was humankind who messed things up.

There are notable large moments as well, most of them unexpected, like the result of the romantic evening between the new dictator and Harley Quinn. He proposes to her, wanting to make her his queen, and since as she says he is so freaking hot, she says yes. But then he says the wrong thing, and that doesn’t sit well with Harley. Her brief diatribe after the fact about having bad taste in men, and the suffering men cause when women break up with these jerks, hits a bulls eye.

THE SUICIDE SQUAD is easily the most entertaining movie I’ve seen in 2021. It’s my favorite superhero of the year so far.

—END—

OUTSIDE THE WIRE (2021) – Netflix Action Movie Mixed Bag

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Well, here we are in 2021, the pandemic still with us, movie theaters still unsafe to visit, and for those of us who love movies, we’re reduced to watching them from home. Now, I’m sure some folks have no problem with this. I for one miss the movie theater experience, and I sincerely hope they survive the pandemic and reopen when it is safe. I will definitely be back inside those darkened walls.

In the meantime, I continue to review movies from home, available on streaming services. And as much as I miss the movie theaters, I’m just grateful that new movies continue to be released.

Up today, it’s an action/science fiction flick from Netflix, OUTSIDE THE WIRE (2021), starring Anthony Mackie, and I was excited to watch it because it would be the first film released in 2021 that I would be reviewing, and it felt like an unofficial reminder that yes, even in this pandemic, the movies are still coming. The well is not dry.

So, I was excited.

Sadly, that’s about as far as my excitement went. Yup, OUTSIDE THE WIRE isn’t exactly the most exhilarating actioner going. It’s not bad, but it could have been so much better. The biggest culprit? The script, which isn’t all that sharp. The action scenes run hot and cold as well.

OUTSIDE THE WIRE takes place in the near future, in 2036, and of course, the world is still at war. A young hot shot drone operator Harp (Damson Idris) ignores a direct order and sends a missile into a war zone, killing two of his own soldiers in the process. The way Harp rationalized his decision, he may have killed two soldiers, but he saved the rest of the platoon who would have all died had he not fired the missile.

But he ignored a direct order, and so there are consequences. For some reason, rather than being tossed out of the military, Harp is sent into a war zone in Eastern Europe, the thinking being he needs to gain experience in live combat in order to fully understand being a drone pilot. On his very first day, Harp is assigned to a special commander named Leo (Anthony Mackie) who Harp immediately learns isn’t human. He’s an advanced artificial intelligence prototype, and he tells Harp that he handpicked him for this mission, which will take them “outside the wire,” outside the protection of their troops and into hostile territory.

Their mission, as Leo explains it, is to locate a rogue terrorist who is planning to steal nuclear warheads and use them against the world. Hmm. Where have I heard this plot point before? Try a billion other movies! And so, this is what the rest of the movie is about, with various plot twists and turns, none of them all that interesting.

OUTSIDE THE WIRE is an average action movie, pure and simple. It trends below average for most of the film, but there were certain parts I liked that kept it watchable.

For starters, I enjoyed the two leads a lot. Damson Idris is excellent as Harp, and he channels a lot of a young Denzel Washington in the role. He has an edge, and you feel he has a chip on his shoulder throughout, and with a better script, the role could have been something special, which ultimately, it is not. But Idris is very good.

Anthony Mackie, known mostly these days to Marvel superhero fans as Sam Wilson/The Falcon in the AVENGERS movies and CAPTAIN AMERICA films, plays Leo, the advanced military robot who looks and acts exactly like a human. Mackie enjoys many fine moments and gets the best lines in the movie, but ultimately, the character just isn’t all that interesting, and the big reveals surrounding the character towards the film’s conclusion only made things worse. Where’s Arnold Schwarzenegger when you need him? But Mackie is a fine actor who has also had notable roles in films like THE HURT LOCKER (2008) and DETROIT (2017).

Emily Beecham plays Sofiya, one of Leo’s contacts in the war zone. She’s one of the more interesting characters in the movie.

And Michael Kelly enjoys frequent scene stealing moments as Eckhart, the no-nonsense takes-no-crap military officer. My favorite Kelly role remains his work on the TV show HOUSE OF CARDS (2013-2018) where he played Doug Stamper, the right hand man to the corrupt Francis Underwood.

As an action movie, OUTSIDE THE WIRE should be driven by its action scenes, which here, unfortunately, run hot and cold. The close-up hand to hand combat scenes are sufficiently intense and are the better action scenes in the movie, but the broader battle scenes, the ones involving big guns and missiles and drones and robots just don’t look all that realistic. There’s a very cartoonish look to them, very CGI, and I wasn’t all that impressed. The most memorable action sequence may have been the one to open the movie, where Harp shoots the fateful missile. That’s not a good sign when the best action sequence is the first one.

OUTSIDE THE WIRE was directed by Mikhael Hafstrom who at the very least keeps the pace of this one moving. Like I said, some of the action scenes work, others don’t. Hafstrom also doesn’t take complete advantage of the Eastern European setting either. The film never establishes a clear sense of place.

Hafstrom also directed ESCAPE PLAN (2013), an action film which paired Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, a film I liked better than OUTSIDE THE WIRE.

The weakest part of OUTSIDE THE WIRE by far is its script by Rowan Athale and Rob Yescombe. For starters, for a futuristic action thriller, the plot is a snooze, mostly because it offers little that is new. The race to get to a nuclear bomb before the bad guy? Yawn. For some reason, the whole story felt like an episode of the TV show THE BLACKLIST (2013- present) , and I kept expecting to see James Spader show up as Raymond Reddington, cooly offering a much better plot twist than the one offered in this movie.

It does offer some good banter between Harp and Leo, and one of the better conversations is when Leo explains why the military built their superstar robot to resemble a black man. So, there are moments where the script is better, but for the most part, expecially in terms of its general plot, it’s subpar.

OUTSIDE THE WIRE is a classic “mixed bag” of a movie. You’ve got a couple of strong lead performances, paired with some notable supporting performances, some good action scenes, some not so good ones, and a story that is when you come right down to it, a yawnfest. Not that saving the world from nuclear disaster isn’t a compelling story. It’s just that it’s been told so many times, and this film doesn’t really offer anything new in the storytelling department.

OUTSIDE THE WIRE could definitely have benefitted from some outside the box thinking.

—END—

CHARLIE’S ANGELS (2019) – New Reboot by Elizabeth Banks Is Stylish, Mindless, and Fun

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The original CHARLIE’S ANGELS TV show (1976-1981) premiered when I was in middle school, so at the time, for obvious reasons, the show caught my attention. But as an adult seeing it years later it never did much for me, and I really never considered myself much of a fan.

Likewise, although the rebooted CHARLIE’S ANGELS movies in the early 2000s starring Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, and Lucy Liu performed well at the box office, I wasn’t a fan of these movies either as I didn’t really enjoy the move to turning the series into a comedy.

So, if you asked me if I’d be seeing yet another reboot of the series, my answer would most likely be no. I would have pretty much zero interest in seeing it.

Except when I read that Elizabeth Banks, an actress I enjoy a lot, was directing, writing, and starring in it. Furthermore, the cast was also going to include Kristen Stewart, another actress I really enjoy, and so against my better judgment, I went to the theater to check out this latest edition of CHARLIE’S ANGELS (2019).

I was not disappointed.

Elizabeth Banks’ CHARLIES ANGELS is a stylish polished action flick with women doing all the butt kicking, and this time, even though the tone for the most part is light, this story does not hide behind comedy to make its point. These women kick butt for real, and it’s believable.

One of my favorite scenes is the film’s finale where the villain boasts that he has the Angels surrounded, and he has, with a small army of henchmen at his disposal, but it’s the Angels who have the last laugh, as unnoticed among these macho thugs stand a multitude of beautiful women, guests of the elegant party they’re all attending, and these women are not there just to be looked at. They’re there to fight. It’s a moment that in a quiet subtle way reveals that men so often aren’t even paying attention to the women in the room, as if they couldn’t possibly be a threat. The Angels’ back-up are literally invisible to their enemies, as they hide in plain sight. It’s a great moment in what otherwise is a pretty standard actioner.

The action scenes are fun and exciting, and Banks handles them well. She has less success with the screenplay which provides a forgettable story that serves only as a bare framework for the action scenes. Banks scores higher with some of the dialogue, which is entertaining, and some of the tweaks she makes to the ANGELS canon, like having “Bosley” be a code name for multiple handlers around the globe.

The plot is about a device that is about to revolutionize the energy industry, but an employee of the company developing the device, Elena Houghlin (Naomi Scott) discovers a flaw and realizes it could easily be turned into a weapon. Her efforts to warn her superiors are ignored, and so she turns to one of the “Bosleys”  (Djimon Hounsou) for help.

When the device is stolen, the Angels jump into action led by Sabina (Kristen Stewart) and Jane (Ella Ballinska), along with Elena who eventually becomes the latest Angel recruit.

As I said, the plot is pretty meager.

The best performance in the movie belongs to Kristen Stewart— Bella who? Stewart has come a long way from the TWILIGHT series, and her performance here as the quirky Sabina who has no filter for when it comes to saying the wrong thing is one of the liveliest parts of the movie.

But I also enjoyed Naomi Scott as the green Elena Houghlin who becomes Angel material while working on this job. Likewise, Ella Balinska is fun and believable as Jane, the former MI6 agent now turned Angel. Basically, the spirited performances by all three of these actors lifts the material to the point where I didn’t care that the plot was rather dumb. They made the story enjoyable.

Writer/director Elizabeth Banks plays the chief Bosley, and Patrick Stewart hams it up as the original Bosley who doesn’t take “retirement” all that well. Stewart is always fun to watch and his presence adds a lot to this one.

Jonathan Tucker makes for a formidable assassin named Hodak who would have been memorable had he possessed some personality.

And in a fun reveal at the end, we get to see who is now running the Angel’s organization for Charlie, and it’s an original cast member!

This 2019 CHARLIE’S ANGELS is certainly a mixed bag. The nothing story does the film no favors, but the spirited performances by the three leads and effective direction by Elizabeth Banks lift it to a level that makes it a rather enjoyable if not mindless action film.

Hey, men like Stallone and Schwarznegger have built their careers making mindless movies like this. If CHARLIE’S ANGELS says anything, it’s that women can make them too.

—END—

RAMBO: LAST BLOOD (2019) – Latest Rambo Movie Shallow Revenge Flick

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The story told in RAMBO: LAST BLOOD (2019) is so threadbare it isn’t funny. One can easily imagine the words “last blood” from the title referring to the last ounce of originality the screenwriters could squeeze from this tired Rambo trope.

Admittedly, I’m not a Rambo fan. I’ve always preferred Sylvester Stallone’s other iconic role, Rocky Balboa, more. I liked the original film FIRST BLOOD (1982) well enough, but the rest of the Rambo movies I could take or leave.

But this isn’t the reason I didn’t like RAMBO: LAST BLOOD. After all, I’m a Sylvester Stallone fan, and I like most of his movies, even those that most critics don’t. But I don’t like all his movies. I’ll be adding RAMBO: LAST BLOOD to that short list of Stallone films I could live without.

RAMBO: LAST BLOOD, the fifth film in the Rambo series, tells a very simple story. Former Green Beret and Vietnam Vet John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) is now living a quiet life on his ranch raising horses. When his grandniece Gabrielle (Yvette Monreal) goes to Mexico in search of her father who abandoned his family years ago, she runs afoul of a Mexican human trafficking cartel. When Rambo receives word that his niece is missing, he immediately goes to Mexico to find her and bring her back, and when things go from bad to worse, he changes his mission to one of pure revenge. And that’s it folks. That’s all she wrote.

Now, I like “revenge moves” as much as the next guy, but this one, like I said, it’s so threadbare it basically just goes through the motions and never resonates on any emotional level other than in a “by-the-numbers” way.

There are two main reasons for this lack of emotional connection. The first is the characters are all flat and uninteresting.

Sure, you’ve got Stallone, and yes it’s certainly fun to see him back on the big screen playing Rambo again. I actually enjoyed the opening act to this film where we see Rambo living his quiet life on his ranch, enjoying his time with his niece, doing his best to provide for her. And admittedly Stallone is fun to watch later when he singlehandedly takes on the gang of bad guys, but that’s really all this movie has to offer, and simply put, that’s not enough.

Yvette Monreal is fine as Rambo’s niece Gabrielle, but she’s really not in the film all that much. Gabrielle becomes a victim much too quickly, and she stays that way. We barely get to know her, both before she’s abducted and later. We don’t really get to see her dealing with the horrific situation she’s been thrust into, nor does she get the chance to fight back.

This one is all about Rambo, and Rambo only. No one else gets to help out.

And the two main villains here, brothers Victor Martinez (Oscar Jaenada) and Hugo Martinez (Sergio Peris-Mencheta) aren’t developed at all. They’re baddies and they do bad things and lead a gang of undesirables who brutalize and traffic young women, so yes, they’re the villains here. But they have zero screen presence, so you can’t even enjoy feeling good when Rambo serves them up their comeuppance.

Then there’s the young woman Carmen Delgado (Paz Vega)  who saves Rambo at one point and looks as if she’s setting up to be an integral supporting character, and then she promptly disappears from the proceedings. So much for that.

Yup, RAMBO: LAST BLOOD is pretty much a one man show: Rambo, Rambo, and more Rambo.

The other reason this one doesn’t work is that it never moves beyond its simple revenge tale.  For example, the fact that the story takes place in Mexico means nothing. It could have taken place anywhere. The screenplay by Matthew Cirulnick and Sylvester Stallone takes no advantage of the setting at all.

When Rambo bursts onto the scene to rescue his niece, he finds other girls as well in harm’s way, but neither the story nor Rambo is interested in these girls. They’re on their own, I guess. Rambo just wants his niece and that’s it.

Also, the film makes little effort to make the notion that Rambo challenging an entire mini army on his own is believable. First of all, initially they kick the living stuffing out of him, and it’s a stretch that they decide to let him live. And then later, when he returns to exact his ultimate revenge, the film enters HOME ALONE territory with Rambo utilizing numerous booby traps to do in his opponents. Not that I doubt Rambo’s skills, but the film did little to make them believable here.

About the only stamp director Adrian Grunberg puts on this movie is its excessive gruesome violence. He gives us lots of close-ups of knives carving into flesh, bones being pulled out of bodies and broken, fingers jamming into bloody wounds, and the kicker, at the end of the film, when Rambo says “I’m going to rip your heart out” he doesn’t mean it figuratively.

I like action films, and I don’t mind gory films, but there needs to be a reason for excessive gore, meaning that it needs to be integral to the story. RAMBO: LAST BLOOD should have been a story where this kind of violence was justified. I mean, Rambo’s avenging his niece, and what happened to her was horrifying and tragic, but the film almost unbelievably fails to show us much about these things.  Now, I’m  not arguing for an even more graphic movie, but I’m talking about the human side of the story, the emotional horrors felt by his niece, and by him. These things the film never explores.

RAMBO: LAST BLOOD is a very shallow movie. It has at its core a famous cinematic character, John Rambo, played by the actor who has always portrayed this character, Sylvester Stallone, but he’s placed here in a story that doesn’t go any deeper than Rambo taking on the bad guys who hurt his niece.

And even that simple story could have still worked here had care been taken to create three-dimensional characters and more emotionally harrowing situations.

Instead, we’re left with RAMBO MEETS HOME ALONE as he singlehandedly makes short work of generic bad guys who are as brainless as they are heartless.

Literally.

—END—

 

 

 

 

MEMORABLE MOVIE QUOTES: ROCKY (1976)

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Sylvester Stallone and Talia Shire in ROCKY 1976)

Welcome back to MEMORABLE MOVIE QUOTES, that column where we look at memorable quotes from classic movies. Up today it’s ROCKY (1976).

It’s easy to forget because of the trajectory that Sylvester Stallone’s career would ultimately take— lots of testosterone-filled action films, most of them not all that good—just how good the original ROCKY (1976) really is.

There’s a reason it won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1976, beating out such notable movies like ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN, NETWORK, and TAXI DRIVER. It’s that good!

And I know a lot of people don’t think highly of Stallone, but I’m a big fan, and I’ve enjoyed most of his movies, even the bad ones. I’d even argue that most of his films are better than critics have given them credit for. Okay, some, like STOP! OR MY MOM WILL SHOOT! (1992) are not.

But his ROCKY movies are all grand entertainment, and the original ROCKY is a genuine cinematic classic. Stallone not only starred as boxer Rocky Balboa, but he also wrote the screenplay, which was also nominated for an Oscar in 1976 but didn’t win.

ROCKY is chock full of memorable lines and conversations. Let’s get right to them.

Yo, Adrian!

Hear that line and you know exactly who’s talking. Not exactly a catchphrase, but those two words are instantly associated with Rocky Balboa.

One of the recurring themes in ROCKY is self-worth, as Rocky is constantly trying to overcome the notion that he’s a bum and that his life isn’t worth anything. In one conversation with his trainer Mickey (Burgess Meredith), Mickey says as much:

MICKEY: You’re a bum, Rock. You’re a bum.

ROCKY: I ain’t no bum, Mick. I ain’t no bum.

 

And again when Mickey takes issue with Rocky’s decision to work as an enforcer for a small time hood rather than work on his boxing skills:

ROCKY: I been coming here for six years, and for six years ya been sticking it to me, and I wanna know how come!

MICKEY: You don’t wanna know!

ROCKY: I wanna know how come!

MICKEY: You wanna know?

ROCKY: I wanna know how!

MICKEY: Okay, I’m gonna tell you! You had the talent to become a good fighter, but instead of that, you become a legbreaker to some cheap, second-rate loan shark!

ROCKY: It’s a living.

MICKEY: It’s a waste of life!

 

Rocky has a similar conversation with Adrian (Talia Shire):

ROCKY: I can’t do it.

ADRIAN: What?

ROCKY: I can’t beat him.

ADRIAN: Apollo?

ROCKY: Yeah. I been out there walking around, thinking. I mean, who am I kidding? I ain’t even in the guy’s league.

ADRIAN: What are we going to do?

ROCKY: I don’t know.

ADRIAN: You worked so hard.

ROCKY: Yeah, that don’t matter. ‘Cause I was nobody before.

ADRIAN: Don’t say that.

ROCKY: Ah come on, Adrian, it’s true. I was nobody. But that don’t matter either, you know? ‘Cause I was thinkin’, it really don’t matter if I lose this fight. It really don’t matter if this guy opens my head, either. ‘Cause all I wanna do is go the distance. Nobody’s ever gone the distance with Creed, and if I can go that distance, you see, and that bell rings and I’m still standin’, I’m gonna know for the first time in my life, see, that I weren’t just another bum from the neighborhood.

 

This pretty much becomes the driving force behind the movie, Rocky’s need to prove himself, not by winning the fight, but simply by not backing down, and going the distance with Creed, something that so far no one else had done.

ROCKY also has its share of comedic lines, like this one by Rocky’s trainer Mickey, one of my favorite lines in the movie, as he tries to light a fire under Rocky to get him to train harder:

MICKEY: You’re gonna eat lightnin’ and you’re gonna crap thunder!

 

And this exchange between fighter and trainer:

MICKEY: Your nose is broken.

ROCKY: How does it look?

MICKEY: Ah, it’s an improvement.

 

And this between Rocky and Adrian:

ADRIAN: It’s Thanksgiving.

ROCKY: Yeah, to you it’s Thanksgiving; to me it’s Thursday.

 

Even Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) gets in on the fun:

APOLLO: Apollo Creed vs. the Italian Stallion. Sounds like a damn monster movie!

 

Getting back to the theme of self-worth, it’s not just about Rocky, either. Adrian has her own issues with self-esteem, especially when she has to deal with her brother Paulie (Burt Young). This is on display here in one of the film’s most dramatic moments that hasn’t anything to do with boxing:

PAULIE:  I don’t want nothin’ from you. I don’t want nothin’ from you. This ain’t no charity case. Get outta my house.

ADRIAN: It’s not just your house.

PAULIE: (to ROCKY): You ain’t no friend no more. Get outta my house, I just says.

ADRIAN: Don’t talk to him like that.

PAULIE: Both of you get out of my house.

ROCKY: Yo… It’s cold outside, Paulie.

[PAULIE grabs a bat]

PAULIE: I don’t want you messin’ her, and I don’t raise you to go with this scum bum! Yeah? Come on! You wanna hit on me? Come on! I’ll break both your arms so they don’t work for ya!

(PAULIE smashes a lamp and then a dinner tray. Adrian screams)

PAULIE: That’s right! I’m not good enough to meet with Gazzo…

(PAULIE spits)

PAULIE: That’s what I think of Gazzo! Now you’re a big-shot fighter on your way up, you don’t even throw a crumb to your friend Paulie! When I go out and get your meat every morning! You forgot that! Then I even give you my sister, too!

ADRIAN: Only a pig would say that!

PAULIE: I’m a pig? A pig gives you the best? (He smashes a coffee set) You’re such a loser! I don’t get married because of you! You can’t live by yourself! I put you two together! And you – don’t you forget it! You owe me! You owe me!

ADRIAN:What do I owe you?

PAULIE:You’re supposed to be good to me!

ADRIAN: What do I owe you, Paulie? What do I owe you?  I treat you good! I cook for you! I cleaned for you! I pick up your dirty clothes! I take care of ya, Paulie! I don’t owe you nothin’! And you made me feel like a loser! I’m not a loser!

Strangely, as annoying Paulie can be, he ends up being one of the more endearing characters in the entire series, mostly because through everything, he does stay by Rocky and Adrian’s side. But early on, things are different. He’s like that family member you can’t get away from fast enough. Like in this conversation where he’s talking to Rocky about his sister, Adrian:

PAULIE: You like her?

ROCKY: Sure, I like her.

PAULIE: What’s the attraction?

ROCKY: I dunno… she fills gaps.

PAULIE: What’s ‘gaps’?

ROCKY: I dunno, she’s got gaps, I got gaps, together we fill gaps.

PAULIE: Are you ballin’ her?

ROCKY: Hey.

(He punches Paulie in the shoulder.)

ROCKY: Hey, you don’t talk dirty about your sister.

PAULIE: Are you screwing my sister?

ROCKY: You see, that’s why I can’t connect you with Gazzo. You know that, Paulie. Because you got a big mouth. You know, you just talk too much.

 

And that’s also why ROCKY has such a good screenplay, as it has realistic dialogue that remains relevant today all these years later. The dialogue isn’t really all that dated.

While its final lines aren’t literary masterpieces, they are certainly memorable, as Rocky screams into the crowd after his bout with Apollo, calling to Adrian repeatedly.

ROCKY: Adrian!!!

As endings go, it’s a keeper.

I hope you enjoyed this edition of MEMORABLE MOVIE QUOTES and join me again next time when we look at cool quotes from other memorable movies.

As always, thanks for reading!

Michael

CREED 2 (2018) – Okay Sequel Derivative of Previous ROCKY movies

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CREED 2 (2018) is actually the sequel to two movies, CREED (2015) and ROCKY IV (1985). As such, it has a lot on its card, and to continue using boxing language, its undercard somewhat outperforms its main event.

The first CREED continued the story of Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) as he trained Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan), the son of his former boxing opponent and eventual friend Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers). While the movie’s title declared it was the story of Adonis Creed, it also featured Rocky Balboa prominently and certainly continued the ROCKY storyline. I enjoyed CREED quite a bit.

ROCKY IV found Rocky training his former opponent and newfound buddy Apollo Creed for a fight against a massive and very deadly Soviet boxer named Drago (Dolph Lundgren). In the fight, Apollo dies from his injuries, and since this was a Rocky movie, it’s up to Rocky Balboa to save the day and somehow defeat the monstrous Drago in the film’s climactic bout.

I was never a fan of ROCKY IV and enjoyed the first three ROCKY movies better. However, ROCKY IV is one of those movies that has grown in stature over the years and has actually aged pretty well. In fact, for many fans, ROCKY IV is the best of the series. While I don’t share that opinion, I certainly do enjoy it more now than I did when I first saw it at the theater in 1985.

In CREED 2,  Ivan Drago trains his son, the equally monstrous Viktor Drago (Florian “Big Nasty” Munteanu) to become boxing champion, and they set their sights on a championship bout against Adonis Creed. Since Ivan Drago is the man who killed his father, Adonis naturally wants to accept the challenge and defeat Viktor Drago to restore honor to his father’s name.

Of course, Rocky is against this fight, as he feels guilty for not stopping the bout in which Apollo died. Adonis decides to pursue the match anyway without Rocky’s help. Predictably, Rocky is eventually pulled back into Adonis’ corner, helping to train the young fighter for the championship rumble.

Nothing that happens in CREED 2 is much of a surprise, and this certainly works against the movie. In spite of a lot of hype and box office success, it’s really just a by the numbers sequel providing nothing new or different from what we’ve already seen in previous ROCKY movies.

As I said, the undercard here outperforms the main event, or in movie terms, the subplots work better than the main plot.

I really enjoyed the Drago storyline. It was fun to see Dolph Lundgren reprising his signature role of Ivan Drago after all these years, and he still looks formidable enough to get back inside that boxing ring to take on Sylvester Stallone. ROCKY X, anyone? Seriously, though, Drago is training his son to win because when he lost that fight to Rocky all those years ago, he lost everything – honor, country, his wife.  He’s been living as an outcast in frigid Russia ever since. There is a lot on the line if his son can win.

As such, in spite of the fact that these guys are supposed to be the “villains” of the movie, I oftentimes found their story more sympathetic than Creed’s and Rocky’s, and I found myself wanting young Drago to win the fight. Furthermore, in spite of their He-Man toughness, there’s a chemistry on display here between the two actors which creates a father-son bond that really works, more so here than the chemistry between Adonis and Rocky.

The one scene between Rocky and Ivan Drago in which they meet for the first time since the fight is one of the movie’s finer moments. There should have been more of these scenes. There are not.

Likewise, as a Rocky fan, the Rocky scenes also worked for me. I continue to enjoy watching Rocky’s storyline play out, from his somber graveside visits to his deceased wife Adrian, to his wise mentorship of the fiery Adonis, to his angst over his estranged relationship with his adult son, I liked it all.  Sure, Stallone can play Rocky in his sleep, but he does it well. I’ve always liked Stallone and feel he has never really received the respect he deserves.

But the main plot, the one about Adonis, just didn’t work all that well for me, and in a movie called CREED 2, that’s not a good thing.

Since I enjoyed CREED so much, it’s not the characters at all, but simply the story. To me, the idea that Adonis would rush into a bout against Drago just didn’t resonate with me or feel all that authentic. He had just won the championship. Viktor Drago had won nothing. It certainly would have made sense for Adonis to defend his title a couple of times before setting up a fight with Viktor. Likewise, Viktor should have worked his way up to the title bout.

Plus, to me, both Dragos had more to gain and to lose than Adonis, and so their story was more interesting. Adonis was already champion. If he wins, sure he could claim a victory for his deceased father, but if he loses, he had already proven himself to be a champion fighter. Viktor Drago hadn’t proven anything yet, and if he loses, his fate is a return to icy Russia. In fact, the final shot of father and son Drago jogging under an ashen Russian sky is a depressing reminder of this fate.

I like Michael B. Jordan as Adonis Creed, but his storyline here just wasn’t as emotional or as locked in as the one told in the first CREED. And it goes beyond the boxing angle. I thought his relationship with both Bianca (Tessa Thompson) and his mother Mary Ann Creed (Phylicia Rashad) were rehashes of things we saw in the first movie. Adonis and Bianca marry here and have a baby, but I thought all of these scenes strangely fell flat. Perhaps it’s because they were so similar to scenes from earlier ROCKY movies.

And that’s the biggest knock I have against CREED 2. It’s so derivative from the other ROCKY movies, from dialogue about what it takes to be a fighter, to the personal relationships and the toll boxing takes on family members, to the training montages, to the boxing matches themselves. For me, the entire thing other than the Drago subplot was a bad case of “been there, done that.”

Director Steven Caple Jr. simply didn’t add any distinguishing attributes to make the movie stand on its own. The fight scenes are okay, but I’ve seen better, and the same can be said for the training montages. I also thought the pace slowed down about two-thirds of the way through. The first CREED, which was directed by Ryan Coogler, had an edge to it that this sequel simply doesn’t possess. Coogler of course also directed BLACK PANTHER (2018), a superior Marvel superhero movie, which also featured Michael B. Jordan, as one of Marvel’s better and more sympathetic movie villains, Erik Killmonger.

The screenplay to CREED 2 was written by Sylvester Stallone and Juel Taylor, and it largely goes through the motions.

As a ROCKY fan, it would be difficult for me not to enjoy CREED 2, and I did enjoy it, but I also recognize that it is sadly derivative of nearly every ROCKY movie which has come before it.

I judge this one a split decision.

—END—

Books by Michael Arruda:

New in 2019! DARK CORNERS, Michael Arruda’s second short story collection, contains ten tales of horror, six reprints and four stories original to this collection.

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Waiting for you in Dark Corners are tales of vampires, monsters, werewolves, demonic circus animals, and eternal darkness. Be prepared to be both frightened and entertained. You never know what you will find lurking in dark corners.

Ebook: $3.99. Available at http://www.crossroadspress.com and at Amazon.com.  Print on demand version coming soon!

TIME FRAME,  science fiction novel by Michael Arruda.  

How far would you go to save your family? Would you change the course of time? That’s the decision facing Adam Cabral in this mind-bending science fiction adventure by Michael Arruda.

Ebook version:  $2.99. Available at http://www.crossroadpress.com. Print version:  $18.00. Includes postage! Email your order request to mjarruda33@gmail.com. Also available at Amazon.com.

IN THE SPOOKLIGHT, movie review collection by Michael Arruda.

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Michael Arruda reviews horror movies throughout history, from the silent classics of the 1920s, Universal horror from the 1930s-40s, Hammer Films of the 1950s-70s, all the way through the instant classics of today. If you like to read about horror movies, this is the book for you!

 Ebook version:  $4.99.  Available at http://www.crossroadpress.com.  Print version:  $18.00.  Includes postage. Email your order request to mjarruda33@gmail.com. Also available at Amazon.com.

FOR THE LOVE OF HORROR, first short story collection by Michael Arruda.  

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Print cover

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Ebook cover

 

Michael Arruda’s first short story collection, featuring a wraparound story which links all the tales together, asks the question: can you have a relationship when your partner is surrounded by the supernatural? If you thought normal relationships were difficult, wait to you read about what the folks in these stories have to deal with. For the love of horror!

 Ebook version:  $4.99.  Available at http://www.crossroadpress.com. Print version:  $18.00.  Includes postage. Email your order request to mjarruda33@gmail.com. Also available at Amazon.com.