By Creed was a superbly directed and acted small film about boxing, that successfully brought Rocky back to its roots, and ditched decades of cheesy ridiculousness that had infested the series. Before Creed Rocky had kind of slipped from more and more ridiculous plots, culminating in Rocky, where we’re supposed to believe an agent Stallone could beat the top boxer in the world or would even get a chance.
Now we have news that boxer Florian “Big Nasty” Munteanu has been cast as Ivan Drago’s son in Creed 2, and it seems the franchise is once again going to slip into absurdity. I’m happy with the casting of an actual boxer, but the fact that we’re going to have a face off between the two children Creed and Drago is just a bit too much. With Dolph Lundgren returning as well, the story of revenge for Michael B. Jordon’s character, whose father was killed by Drago in a boxing match, is way to melodramatic so I hope they’re taking it in some other direction. If not they better go full camp, and make a Rocky film as ridiculously over-the-top as Rocky IV.
