Battle fatigue sets in roughly halfway through this eighth installment of Sylvester Stallone's Rocky franchise.

Full Review | Feb 22, 2020

Creed II fits the mold of every Rocky sequel-competent, entertaining, and a little passionless

Full Review | Dec 21, 2018

There's... so much to enjoy in Creed II.

Full Review | Dec 6, 2018

Creed II does beat you over the head with its sentimentalism - too much text instead of subtext. But it's generally effective,

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Dec 6, 2018

Ultimately though, Creed II is as much a male weepie or old-school melodrama as it is a boxing movie, and this is actually where it succeeds best.

Full Review | Dec 4, 2018

... refreshingly less concerned with trite triumphs than it is with fractured men forced to confront who they perceive themselves to be or aspire to be vs. who they are - and the fight to reconcile that.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Dec 4, 2018

Of course Creed II is familiar ground. But it honours the genre and still has enough vitality to make us feel the thrill again.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Dec 4, 2018

Creed II is almost a match for its predecessor in most respects, and in one its superior.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 2, 2018

Jordan is the best thing about the film; vulnerable mouth and defiant, boyish attitude voice ("I'm dangerous!" he insists, voice cracking) telegraphing insecurity and impostor syndrome that feels lived in.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 1, 2018

You can feel the punches being landed... because you care about the characters.

Full Review | Dec 1, 2018

I don't think I have sat before a boxing film where the punches felt harder, even 10 rows back from the screen.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 30, 2018

Ryan Coogler, having gone on to bigger and bigger things, steps aside and lets relative newcomer Steven Caple, Jr. do the job of mixing the beats of Rocky III and Rocky IV into a smooth groove for the son of Apollo Creed (Michael B. Jordan).

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 30, 2018

As the eighth instalment in an ancient boxing franchise, Creed II should not be this good. Yet at times it is flat-out thrilling.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 30, 2018

Hugely enjoyable, with some terrific performances and a keen eye on the continuing evolution of the series, while maintaining the heart of the original.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 30, 2018

Sadly, the first Creed's director, Ryan Coogler, didn't stick around for a sequel and it shows. But this is still a solid, earnestly acted effort.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 29, 2018

The Rocky franchise is nothing if not redundant, or rather, full of reverberations, past stories just waiting to be mined by some later sequel. Creed II doesn't quite make a meal of the opportunity.

Full Review | Nov 29, 2018

It's a sturdy second round after a cracking first one.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 29, 2018

You see it coming. The same goes for much of the dialogue. Even so, this is an enjoyable and rousing affair that wins you over by the sheer process of attrition.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 29, 2018

Cheerfully ludicrous.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 28, 2018

If you were delivering a lecture on how to extract the most value from a worn formula then you could do worse than direct your audience to the latest film in the Rocky cycle.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 28, 2018