With a focus sharp as a beam of light, Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan) is after something intangible. Is it glory, pride, joy? He breathes in and out and punches the bag and screams. He and his coach, Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone), spend a lot of “Creed II” puzzling through this fight that has no name—the ineffable rush that comes from a hard-won victory, the thrill of doing something big, testing your apparent limits, reveling in your success. Driven to excel, Adonis puts himself through the ringer, bloodying his body and sullying his psyche—and for what? For whom?
The sequel to the 2015 film “Creed” follows Adonis’s boxing career as he assumes several new mantles: heavyweight champion of the world, father, inexhaustible avenger. Right after Adonis wins the heavyweight title, a Russian boxer named Viktor Drago challenges him to a fight. Viktor’s father, Ivan Drago, killed Adonis’s father, Apollo Creed—Rocky’s arch-rival in the “Rocky” movies of the 1970s and ’80s—in the ring in 1985’s “Rocky IV.” “It all feels so Shakespearean,” says a boxing commentator. Fights are about narrative-building, says Buddy Marcelle, a promoter who amps up the tension with his public appearances and media baiting.
Driven to excel, Adonis puts himself through the ringer, bloodying his body and sullying his psyche—and for what?
At a meeting in an Italian restaurant decked out in red-and-white-check tablecloths, Ivan Drago, who looks like a cross between Steve Kerr and Vladimir Putin, snarls at Rocky, a former opponent. They talk trash, and Ivan reiterates the challenge. But “Creed II” is less about petty grievances than doing right by your forebears. When Adonis watches a YouTube video of his dad’s death, you can see something snap in him, some giant psychological tendon. Even though Rocky wants him to forget about “what…
