Critics reviews

A thoroughly gratifying effort with perhaps more interesting overtones and echoes than the perfunctory script allows for, particularly on the topics of male tenderness and race. Yet it also functions as an utterly enjoyable genre movie, if not with the terse realism of its predecessor.

The previous installment in this franchise reboot, starring Michael B. Jordan as Adonis Creed (the son of the late Apollo Creed), reconsidered and revised the “Rocky” mythology; this sequel shamelessly indulges it.

Where Coogler’s movie runs hot, Caple’s runs warm; where Coogler dwells, steeping every scene in a sense of shared history and a love of Philadelphia, Caple takes for granted that this ground has already been sowed.

“Creed II” affirms two great truths of our pop-cultural moment: that Michael B. Jordan is currently the ascendant American male movie star and that the revived, revised “Rocky” franchise — focused on the trials and triumphs of Adonis Creed, Rocky Balboa’s protégé and the son of his long-departed friend and rival — is the only heroic Hollywood multisequel narrative worth caring about.

There are too many trifling ideas, and too much plot, stuffed into Creed II to make it the sleek powerhouse that its predecessor was.

The fight scenes are more functional than anything else, lacking the previous film’s inventive camerawork. This time, we linger on photos of the glorious past approximately 823 times.