Tag Archives: michael b. jordan

03.03.23
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Creed III

Adonis Creed has been living out his wildest dreams, including being the reigning heavyweight boxing champion of the world, and a loving husband and father. When an old friend Dame returns from a long prison sentence, he brings back his and Adonis’ past with him, which will lead to the next big match of Creed’s career.

Though the Creed films were always follow-ups to the beloved Rocky franchise, they’ve made themselves feel fresh and modern while retaining the themes of hard work, underdogs, healthy masculinity, and family that make Rocky so iconic. Three films in, and what you’re watching still feels exciting and imbued with passion from behind the camera. Not to mention the director behind the camera is also its star, Michael B. Jordan. He delivers a strong debut as a filmmaker and brings out not only a strong visual energy to the boxing and training sequences, but the best out of the performances. Jordan and Thompson again work so well together and are two of the most charismatic, vigorous stars of this generation. The dynamic they have, now that their daughter is in the films too, brings another beautiful layer to their world that we’ve already been invested in thanks to the last two films. Jonathan Majors is a formidable screen partner to Jordan as Dame, a man ready to get back at the world for the unfortunate past he’s suffered and the life he feels he’s been robbed of. But similar to the Dragos in Creed II, Dame is empathetic and his longing for the championship Rocky and Creed have already felt isn’t as selfish as his attitude towards getting there.

Along with the excitement of seeing cool stars spar it out in the boxing ring is the complexity that the Creed films’ characters have and the scripts’ push to always have them growing and learning new things, as for every film to feel significant. Despite this, one story arc does feel slightly incomplete at the end and despite creative editing from Jordan, it does get aggressive in a few instances. Though it isn’t as wondrously directed as when Ryan Coogler was at the helm, it’s a film that gets better and better, with the dialogue just as exciting as the sports, but when the sports is there, it’s a blast thanks to the actors, direction, and always thrilling soundtrack that gives the film so much life.

08.09.15
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Fantastic Four (2015)

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Four young outsiders teleport to an alternate and dangerous universe which alters their physical form in shocking ways. The four must learn to harness their new abilities and work together to save Earth from a former friend turned enemy.

Fantastic Four brings the 4 heroes back to the big screen. For good? Unfortunately not. The movie was only made so that Fox could keep the rights to the characters. And despite the studio also making the film to re-imagine the franchise for a new decade, no good effort comes out of this movie. The  script is lousy, cliche, and couldn’t be more predictable. It’s everything we’ve seen before, and nothing new came out of it. The directing isn’t good either, and although director Josh Trank apparently had a much better version of the movie before its release, Fox interfered and forced him to re-shoot. The result is something that couldn’t be more cliche, and like The Amazing Spider-Man 2, was interfered massively by its studio, resulting in the movie being worse than the director’s original idea. I am tired of this happening in post-productions, especially with high-budget films. I don’t believe a studio is there to avert a movie from the director’s vision, is the director is the most important person behind the camera of a movie.

The cast members are all horrendous. They are not interesting to watch on screen, as they do not bring their characters to life well. Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan, and Jamie Bell all deliver boring performances and aren’t special at all. Sure, they are great actors in other movies, but they didn’t work well with the script in this movie, especially because they didn’t deliver their lines well. Toby Kebbell gives a decent approach at first, but by the time his character becomes a villain, starts saying villain-y things and doing villain-y stuff, he isn’t interesting, either. Like the rest of the cast, Reg E. Cathey and Tim Blake Nelson are extremely boring, as two very cliche and predictable supporting characters.

Like I was saying earlier, everything about the story is extremely cliche, from the themes about family to the opening story about curious children wanting to solve the mysteries of science. There wasn’t a single bit of it I didn’t find to be familiar, just like my first impression of the movie when the first trailer was released back in February. The movie’s pacing is actually alright. It takes its time at first, but later it spends 40 minutes trying to convey the same thing over and over again, and then it ends way too early. It should have been at least 20 minutes longer, although no one would want to sit through 20 more minutes of utter garbage. By the end of the movie, the film’s approach is so awful. The ending is very weak, and they way they try to set it up for a sequel is in the most cliche and frustrating way possible, ti the point that I hope the sequel is scratched along with plans for a shared universe with the X-Men. I can’t yet decide what’s worse: this, or the dreadful 2005 Fantastic Four movie.

Unsurprisingly, Fantastic Four doesn’t satisfyingly bring the characters to the big screen, and more than that, it makes us want them to leave the screen. It’s time to put this franchise to rest.

Fantastic Four 2015 poster.jpg