Review: Michael B. Jordan Delivers a Brawler in ‘Creed III’

This image released by MGM shows Michael B. Jordan as Adonis Creed in a scene from "Creed III." (MGM via AP)
This image released by MGM shows Michael B. Jordan as Adonis Creed in a scene from "Creed III." (MGM via AP)
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Review: Michael B. Jordan Delivers a Brawler in ‘Creed III’

This image released by MGM shows Michael B. Jordan as Adonis Creed in a scene from "Creed III." (MGM via AP)
This image released by MGM shows Michael B. Jordan as Adonis Creed in a scene from "Creed III." (MGM via AP)

It must be a daunting prospect to pick up a franchise on the third movie. Add in the pressure of following filmmakers like Ryan Coogler and Steven Caple Jr. in your directorial debut that you’re also starring in and it’s enough to make you wonder what on earth Michael B. Jordan was thinking.

But “Creed III,” in US theaters on Friday, is a new start for Adonis Creed. He’s finally out of the shadow of his father Apollo and Rocky Balboa, whose legacy loomed large over the first two films (Sylvester Stallone decided “Creed II” would be his last). With Rocky out of the way, and the younger Creed solidly in place as the best in the world, the franchise can breathe a little and grow.

Enter the Dame (not that kind of dame).

This one is in the form of Jonathan Majors, an old buddy from their teenage years in a group home in the early 2000s. Dame, or Damian Anderson, is a bit older than Creed. He’s the one who’s boxing in the underground matches at night. The young Creed (Thaddeus J. Mixon), a little awkward, a little too eager to please and a little too ready for trouble, is the one carrying water (and bags and gloves) and helping him strategize.

There is a palpable menace established early on with these two — an unequal power and age dynamic, sure, but also the implication that Dame (Spence Moore II) is more than willing to play dirty. He carries a gun. He fixes games. And he has a hold on young Adonis. The flashback ends with a violent altercation outside a convenience store. Dame goes away. Creed becomes Creed.

This flashback is important but does get the film off to a bit of a slow start, jumping forward chronologically to Creed’s last fight and then to his present-day retirement life — a luxurious and tranquil existence in the Hollywood Hills in a modernist mansion with his daughter Amara (Mila Davis Kent) and wife Bianca (Tessa Thompson), who has given up singing mostly to produce hit records.

Life is nice for the obscenely rich in LA: The clothes are expensive, the cars are price upon request, the house always spotless and the staff unseen (save for a chef in one scene). At the gym run by Duke (Wood Harris), he’s trying to mentor the next generation of champions.

Then Dame re-appears and the movie gets its urgency back. His old pal was locked up for 18 years after that incident and is freshly out of prison, wanting to pick up his life and his boxing aspirations where he left off. Creed is pleasant but guarded — for much of the film he acts like an aloof celebrity, hyper conscious of not letting anyone in too close and compartmentalizing the uglier aspects of his past. Still, he takes him out to lunch and offers to help him in any way he can. This is both the right thing to do and also a huge mistake.

“Creed III” is, among other things, about what happens when men don’t talk about their feelings (and ignore Duke’s advice).

At times, it also feels more like a thriller than a sports film as you watch Dame infiltrate Creed’s world. It’s always Creed’s idea, there’s always an invitation, but Dame’s sudden omnipresence starts to feel unavoidable and ominous. Dame has a bit of Eve Harrington in him, but also a very real, very relatable chip on his shoulder for the time he lost. In another movie, he could very well be the underdog we’re rooting for — some of the audience may be rooting for him even so.

Lurking behind everything is the madness that comes from not being able to do what you were born to do. It’s something athletes grapple with earlier than most other professionals. An injury at 23 could take you out when you’re just getting started and in this film Creed, Dame and Bianca are having similar existential crises — though Dame’s desperation is the driving force behind everything that happens.

Jordan and his filmmaking team craft two particularly stunning matches full of suspense, drama and slow motion sweat beads flying through the air. These are only lessened by the cheesy, unhelpful announcers spouting cliches and no actually helpful exposition or explanation outside the ring. And ultimately, it’s a promising debut for the 36-year-old, who shows here that he’ll never let his own star ego get in the way of a film: Majors steals the show, and Jordan is there to capture it.

There’s a comforting but predictable rhythm to a boxing franchise like Rocky and now Creed. The movies must keep justifying themselves, inventing new challenges that make them all feel different enough. But most essentially boil down to the same framework: You have to knock the champion down to a believable underdog again. While there is a case to be made for the final fight to, let’s just say, go a different way than it does, “Creed III” is still a knockout.



France's Ozon Under the Gun with Big Screen Take on Camus Classic

 Director Francois Ozon and cast members Benjamin Voisin and Rebecca Marder pose on the red carpet for the screening of the movie "The Stranger" in competition, at the 82nd Venice Film Festival, in Venice, Italy, September 2, 2025. (Reuters)
Director Francois Ozon and cast members Benjamin Voisin and Rebecca Marder pose on the red carpet for the screening of the movie "The Stranger" in competition, at the 82nd Venice Film Festival, in Venice, Italy, September 2, 2025. (Reuters)
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France's Ozon Under the Gun with Big Screen Take on Camus Classic

 Director Francois Ozon and cast members Benjamin Voisin and Rebecca Marder pose on the red carpet for the screening of the movie "The Stranger" in competition, at the 82nd Venice Film Festival, in Venice, Italy, September 2, 2025. (Reuters)
Director Francois Ozon and cast members Benjamin Voisin and Rebecca Marder pose on the red carpet for the screening of the movie "The Stranger" in competition, at the 82nd Venice Film Festival, in Venice, Italy, September 2, 2025. (Reuters)

French director Francois Ozon has dared to do what so many other filmmakers have shied away from -- adapting one of French literature's most-read classics, Albert Camus's "The Stranger", for the big screen.

The "8 Women" director said this week he had rediscovered Camus's 1942 novel after first reading it in school like so many other French teenagers -- but not really understanding its deeper absurdist meaning.

"I was shocked reading it because the book was still so strong, so powerful, so mysterious and so I was excited," Ozon told journalists at the Venice Film Festival where "The Stranger" premiered on Tuesday.

"It was a big challenge because when I decided to make it, so many French people told me, 'It's my favorite book, I'm curious to see what you will do', so it was a big pressure."

Ozon said it was crucial to bring a more contemporary view to the novel, which takes place in 1930s Algeria under French colonialism, where Meursault, the Algerian-born French protagonist, kills an Arab man, who is never named in the book.

It was "impossible" for the Arab victim to remain nameless, said Ozon, who gives him a name in the film while fleshing out the character of his sister, whose honor the murdered man tried to defend.

"It was important to give a name to this man who is dead because during the trial (of Mersault), we never speak about him," he said.

He said that choice was "political, especially today where there is a real invisibility of the victims in Gaza, for example."

The only other well-known film version of "L'Etranger", whose stage adaptation is a fixture in French theaters, is a 1967 film by Italian maestro Luchino Visconti starring Marcello Mastroianni.

Ozon said he told Camus's daughter Catherine that a too-faithful rendering of the book -- as he believes Visconti did -- would not work.

"I said to her, 'We have to look at the story with the eyes of today.' It's impossible to follow the book like someone in 1942," he told AFP.

Filmed in Morocco and starring Benjamin Voisin as the detached Meursault -- who is sentenced to be beheaded for his crime -- Ozon's "The Stranger" is set under a blinding sun and shot in black and white.

"For me it was quite obvious to shoot in black and white, to show the sun... to have something very abstract, very pure and not to be disturbed by colors," Ozon said.

The film begins with archival footage of Algiers -- images of the wealthy white French elite in Algeria contrasted with those of Algerians -- that hint at the tensions simmering just under the surface of colonial rule.

"I wanted to be realistic about the situation in Algeria. I wanted to show both communities. I wanted to show that these two communities live side by side," he said.

The Hollywood Reporter said Camus's classic "works splendidly on the page but does not necessarily translate well to the screen."

Yet it said Ozon's new adaptation "gets many, many things right".

Variety called it "a superb portrait of disaffection".


NFL Commissioner Opens Door for Swift Super Bowl Performance

FILED - 13 November 2022, North Rhine-Westphalia, Duesseldorf: American singer Taylor Swift walks the red carpet at the MTV Europe Music Awards in front of the PSD Bank Dome. Photo: Rolf Vennenbernd/dpa
FILED - 13 November 2022, North Rhine-Westphalia, Duesseldorf: American singer Taylor Swift walks the red carpet at the MTV Europe Music Awards in front of the PSD Bank Dome. Photo: Rolf Vennenbernd/dpa
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NFL Commissioner Opens Door for Swift Super Bowl Performance

FILED - 13 November 2022, North Rhine-Westphalia, Duesseldorf: American singer Taylor Swift walks the red carpet at the MTV Europe Music Awards in front of the PSD Bank Dome. Photo: Rolf Vennenbernd/dpa
FILED - 13 November 2022, North Rhine-Westphalia, Duesseldorf: American singer Taylor Swift walks the red carpet at the MTV Europe Music Awards in front of the PSD Bank Dome. Photo: Rolf Vennenbernd/dpa

Pop icon Taylor Swift, recently engaged to Kansas City Chiefs star Travis Kelce, is a definite "maybe" to perform at the Super Bowl, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell told NBC's Today show on Wednesday.

"We would always love to have Taylor play," Goodell said. "She is a special, special talent and obviously she would be welcome any time."

Asked if that meant an appearance by Swift at the NFL's championship showpiece was in the works, Goodell hedged.

"I can't tell you anything about it," he said. "It's a maybe."

Goodell said he was "waiting on my friend Jay-Z" for word on the Super Bowl halftime show lineup. Jay-Z's Roc Nation company has produced the show in a partnership with the NFL since 2019.

Goodell's appearance on the Today show came on the eve of the NFL's season-opener between the Super Bowl champions the Philadelphia Eagles and the Dallas Cowboys.

The buildup to the season has been enlivened by the engagement announcement of Swift and Kelce -- whose romance has been a cultural crossover phenomenon thanks to the huge popularity of the NFL and Swift's legion of fans, AFP reported.

This season the Chiefs will be vying for a return to the Super Bowl after the Eagles denied them a third straight crown in February.

The Super Bowl will be held on February 8 at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California, home of the San Francisco 49ers.


Daniel Craig Leads Hollywood Stars to Toronto for 50th Film Fest

Netflix's popular 'Knives Out' whodunit franchise returns, with former 007 actor Daniel Craig back investigating the latest murder in 'Wake Up Dead Man'. Frederic J. Brown / AFP/File
Netflix's popular 'Knives Out' whodunit franchise returns, with former 007 actor Daniel Craig back investigating the latest murder in 'Wake Up Dead Man'. Frederic J. Brown / AFP/File
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Daniel Craig Leads Hollywood Stars to Toronto for 50th Film Fest

Netflix's popular 'Knives Out' whodunit franchise returns, with former 007 actor Daniel Craig back investigating the latest murder in 'Wake Up Dead Man'. Frederic J. Brown / AFP/File
Netflix's popular 'Knives Out' whodunit franchise returns, with former 007 actor Daniel Craig back investigating the latest murder in 'Wake Up Dead Man'. Frederic J. Brown / AFP/File

Hollywood stars arrived in Toronto Thursday for a celebratory 50th edition of North America's biggest film festival, with new movies from Daniel Craig, Sydney Sweeney and Matthew McConaughey among a packed lineup.

The Toronto International Film Festival dwarfs more famous rivals like Venice and Cannes for sheer scale, if not glitz and glamour, drawing an estimated 400,000 annual visitors to the Canadian metropolis.

Over 11 days of red-carpet galas, the "audience-first" fest showcases splashy crowd-pleasers in front of giant public audiences, while also serving as a key launchpad for Oscars campaigns.

This year, Netflix's popular "Knives Out" whodunit franchise returns, with former 007 actor Craig back investigating the latest murder in "Wake Up Dead Man" in a Saturday night world premiere, alongside Glenn Close, Mila Kunis and Josh O'Connor, AFP reported.

Josh Brolin plays an unnerving demagogue with a cult following in a film that "tackles current issues in a fun, locked-room, classical-plot way," said TIFF director of programming Robyn Citizen.

Sweeney aims to pivot from her recent jeans ad controversy to Academy Award contender with Friday's premiere of "Christy," a gritty, raw biopic of US female boxing pioneer Christy Martin.

In another harrowing true-life tale, launching Friday, McConaughey rescues schoolchildren from California wildfires in the emotionally searing action-thriller "The Lost Bus."

For the festival's 50th anniversary celebrations, stars Russell Crowe, Paul Mescal, Angelina Jolie and Anya Taylor-Joy will all hit the screenings and soirees.

TIFF "started out as festival of festivals, choosing the best work from around the world to show to Toronto audiences," Citizen said.

While it has increasingly prioritized discovering new filmmakers, "certainly our public audience is what distinguishes us as a big festival," she said.

French invasion

French directors are sure to bring a European flair.

Matt Dillon appears in Claire Denis' drama "The Fence," about a mysterious death on an African construction site, while Arnaud Desplechin launches love story "Two Pianos" starring Charlotte Rampling.

Alice Winocour directs Jolie for Paris fashion drama "Couture."

Romain Gavras's celebrity climate-change satire "Sacrifice" stars Taylor-Joy and Chris Evans as an eco-terrorist and a waning movie star, respectively.

Elsewhere, Crowe gives what organizers describe as a nuanced and eerily charismatic performance as Nazi Hermann Goering on trial in historical drama "Nuremberg," opposite fellow Oscar-winner Rami Malek.

"You don't expect to be disarmed by this person, who you know has done horrible things," said Citizen. "And then, through the course of the movie, you are."

Keanu Reeves plays an incompetent angel in Aziz Ansari's body-swapping farce "Good Fortune," while Channing Tatum portrays a real-life fugitive who lives clandestinely inside a toy store in "Roofman."

Brendan Fraser plays a lonely actor for hire at funerals and weddings in Tokyo-set "Rental Family."

The Bard and the King

Toronto follows hot on the heels of the small but influential US-based Telluride festival, and invites a selection of movies to make a bigger, second splash.

Among them, Mescal plays a young William Shakespeare in literary adaptation "Hamnet" from Oscar-winning director Chloe Zhao -- though the focus is squarely on the Bard's long-suffering wife Agnes, played by a "transcendent" Jessie Buckley, says Citizen.

The film earned rave reviews and plenty of Oscar buzz in Telluride.

Director Edward Berger, on a hot run after "All Quiet on the Western Front" and "Conclave," will present Colin Farrell as a down-on-his-luck gambler in "Ballad of a Small Player."

And fresh from Venice, director Guillermo del Toro brings his reimagining of "Frankenstein," while Dwayne Johnson will promote "The Smashing Machine," which has already drawn gushing predictions of a first Oscar nomination for the former pro wrestler known as "The Rock."

TIFF runs until September 14.