Once upon a time, 13-year-old me was making my way from my orchestra seat onto the stage of the Winter Garden Theatre and finding my place on a set of bleachers. It was main event time. Teenage me sat in awe of the choreography, the lights and most importantly, the music of Rocky the Musical, which made its way to Broadway after a successful run in Germany. If that doesn’t speak to the versatility of the Rocky franchise, I don’t know what will.

Soon after Rocky the Musical closed on Broadway, the Creed franchise began. Like the recent Star Wars sequel trilogy was supposed to, the Creed films have all had a different director. Ryan Coogler directed the first installment before Steven Caple Jr. helmed the second and in steps the series’ star, Michael B. Jordan, to close out the trilogy. Unlike the Star Wars sequel trilogy, the Creed franchise’s latest installment and trilogy closer, Creed III, is the best of the bunch and ends this trilogy on a high note. Full of visceral action, compelling drama and fantastic performances, Creed III packs one hell of a punch (that was my obligatory boxing reference) and is the best film of the trilogy. 

Creed III begins with a flashback to a young Adonis (Alex Henderson plays the younger Adonis and masterfully gets Jordan’s chuckle and aura down) and his pal Dame (played by Spence Moore II as a kid and Jonathan Majors as an adult). It’s clear that Dame is a boxing prodigy and on his way to the life that Adonis ends up having. “You’re gonna be there too,” a young Dame tells Adonis, “someone has gotta carry my bags.”

That fate changes after he gets arrested. In fairness to Dame, he’s just looking out for his friend as Adonis is jumped after attacking their foster home father, but that argument doesn’t get you very far in court. 

Fast forward 18 years and Adonis is still living his best life. Much like Rocky by the time of Rocky III, the gloves are away and he’s spending his days playing the part of the frog his daughter Amara (Mila Davis-Kent)’s backyard productions of The Princess and the Frog while Bianca (Tessa Thompson) spends her days locked away in the studio producing music. But like they say, you can take the man out of the boxing ring, but you can’t take the boxing out of the man, so Adonis still spends time in his gym where he checks in on the up-and-comers. 

That’s when Dame makes his reemergence, not asking for a handout, but the opportunity he never got. He knows time is ticking on his career, and as fate would have it, the number one contender for the World Heavyweight Championship is taken out of commission and Dame is given his one chance. For the sake of spoilers, I won’t go any further into detail, but I’m sure you can guess where that heads. 

Just as Jordan puts a twist on Rocky’s iconic “it’s not about how hard you get hit” line (if I could remember it, I would’ve written it here), Creed III veers away from a lot of the house that Balboa built and is its own thing. Jordan really puts his fingerprints all over this film and makes it his own. I’m sure Jordan was heavily assisted, given that this is his directorial debut and all, but you can’t help but be in awe of what he did. 

The boxing scenes are vital to any boxing film (obviously), and you may not want to admit it, but the Rocky and Creed franchises were in dire need of some shaking up. The formula of showing the entire first round in relative real-time and from there dissolving between the ring girls round after round can grow stale after eight installments. The fights are always satisfying, sure, but that template has been used in all of these films. Jordan finds a new way to expedite the process of the fights in Creed III, utilizing a more fantastical approach to his climactic boxing match. And the anime influences are seen throughout this fight as every whiff of the gloves is heard along with every punch landed (hats off to the sound team). As a result, the film is the most intense of any in the entire franchise to date (try not to squirm when one character takes their mouthpiece out and sees a tooth come with it). You even get a lot of the trash talk while the boxers are in the ring — something I remember being reserved for the time period in between rounds. Just masterful stuff. 

This is further enhanced by the Creed franchise’s utilization of its sponsorships and partnerships — which has only grown with each installment. Whether it’s the way they show Showtime documentaries or use Stephen A. Smith and First Take as a whole plot point, it makes Creed III feel like it takes place in reality. This dates back to Rocky Balboa, which I remember having Max Kellerman on commentary and likely used HBO as its PPV sponsor, but Creed III really took it to the next level by doing product placement that’s not as obnoxious as the Audis in the MCU movies. 

Jordan not only shines behind the camera, but he also delivers another great performance as Adonis. At this point, it feels like Adonis is a part of Jordan and vice versa. It’s his character, and he can continue playing it for as long as he’d like. He’s grown well past the days of being in Apollo Creed’s shadow. It also helps that he and Thompson may be the most believable on-screen couple in a franchise out there, and his moments with the young Davis-Kent are adorable. Maybe continuing to let Davis-Kent grow between installments while increasing her role can keep the franchise fresh if they wish to continue it. 

I’ll be honest — I was skeptical about Creed III not featuring Rocky. I get that you eventually have to move on, but how could a film in this franchise go without mentioning him? Well, Creed III found a way. Outside of one blink-or-you’ll-miss-it reference, I don’t believe that Rocky is ever shown or mentioned. It’s a bold choice, but one that Jordan pulls off because of how the story was written and how it stands on its own. There’s really no room for Rocky unless you wanted him to serve the role of Adonis’ conscience, but it may have been better off to actually keep this story small and personal and allow the viewer to see the Creed franchise fully become its own thing. You know how Spider-Man finally becomes Spider-Man at the end of No Way Home once everything he knew is taken away from him and he’s without all of the webs attached to the MCU? It’s a similar thing in Creed III. 

It’s been said many times before, but I have to say it again — 2023 is Jonathan Majors’ year. Yes, he was the best part of the abysmal Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, but his performance as Dame is on another level. He’s chiseled like a Greek god, making you actually fear him whenever he faces off with Adonis, and Majors gives an uneasy, but equally animalistic performance that truly cements his place as one of the elite stars in Hollywood. You, like Adonis, feel obligated to help him and want to give him the benefit of the doubt. But like we’ve seen in countless other stories similar to this, that rarely works and it stings when Dame betrays his friend. This is the Majors antagonist that I’d actually want to see in a number of installments of a franchise. There are layers to his story — more than any other villain in this franchise — and he’s more than just a part of the bloodline of one of Rocky or Apollo’s past opponents.

The film does Majors dirty in one area, however. Once Dame does his “heel turn,” he sort of pulls a Brock Lesnar and goes part-time for the rest of the film. He supposedly goads Adonis out of retirement, but we don’t really see any torment in the media. Unless I fell asleep for a crucial 10 minutes, Dame just falls into the shadows and apparently trash-talks Adonis’ family, career and manhood. It’s a totally plausible thing for the viewer to believe, but it would’ve been nice to see it rather than having one confrontation at the beach and then Adonis going on national television to call him out 10 minutes later. In no way am I attempting to say that any of the Rocky or previous Creed films had sophisticated plots, but this was so sudden, and while I appreciate a breezy two-hour film, a little bit more from Majors would’ve really driven all of the emotional intensity home. 

It’s unlikely that any film can ever recreat the total package that was the original Rocky — It was the quintessential underdog story both in terms of its behind-the-scenes stories and on-screen hero — but the franchise that began with Sylvester Stallone running up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art has now spun off into one of the best running franchises. It’s just so polished and has real stakes. Jordan’s directorial debut only adds more juice to this franchise after a so-so middle installment, and while it seemed like the franchise was destined to keep finding a new suitor to take the directors’ chair each film, I think they found their guy. Whether this is the final time that Adonis Creed throws a punch or not, Creed III is the perfect end to this trilogy and the second-best film in the entire franchise. Selfishly, I’d love to keep revisiting Adonis every four or five years, but sometimes it’s better to leave when people want more than when they’re begging you to stop (just see Rocky V).

Creed III will be released in theaters on March 3.