This Is How I Grappled with ‘One Battle After Another’

September 30, 2025

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Pictured: a moment from One of the Battles (CREDIT: Warner Bros./Screenshot)

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Chase Infiniti, Teyana Taylor, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, Regina Hall, Tony Goldwyn, James Downey, Alana Haim, Wood Harris, Shayna McHayle, Paul Grimstad, Dijon Duenas, John Hoogenakker, Eric Schweig

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson

Running Time: 162 Minutes

Rating: R

Release Date: September 26, 2025 (Theaters)

Could One Battle for Another be the funniest movie I’ve ever seen that I didn’t laugh once during? Before I ventured out to the multiplex, I’d been seeing a lot of raves calling it pretty dang hilarious in the midst of a wild and high-wire tonal mix. And I can now intellectually confirm what everyone was talking about. Leo D. rolling around on the floor, Benicio del T. doing a little dance on the side of the road – that’s some goofy physicality for ya! Trouble is, these moments are also really TENSE. The whole movie is so goshdang tense! Yeah, these characters do plenty of silly things, but always in situations where getting shot in the head is a real possibility. So keep your head on straight, and you’ll probably enjoy this movie. Maybe not in the exact same way as I did (re: chuckling), but that should still work out okay.

Grade: 5 Christmases out of 1 Moment of Zen

It’s a Battle with the Past in ‘Creed III’

March 2, 2023

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Majors v. Jordan: who do ya got? (CREDIT: : Eli Ade/© 2023 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures)

Starring: Michael B. Jordan, Jonathan Majors, Tessa Thompson, Alex Henderson, Spence Moore II, Wood Harris, Florian Munteanu, Phylicia Rashad, Mila Davis-Kent

Director: Michael B. Jordan

Running Time: 116 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for The Violence of the Game

Release Date: March 3, 2022 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan, Alex Henderson in flashbacks) has hung up his gloves and turned his focus towards training other fighters. But we’re all savvy enough to know what’s coming next. Something’s always lurking around the corner to pull the hero back in. In this case, it’s a surprise from the past in the form of childhood friend Damian Anderson (Jonathan Majors, Spence Moore II in flashbacks), who was once a promising boxer himself before a lengthy prison stay on weapons charges. Despite his advanced age by boxing standards, Dame his sights set on the heavyweight title, and that unhinged ambition threatens to wreck the stability of Adonis’ personal and professional lives.

What Made an Impression?: Creed III marks Jordan’s directorial debut, and he certainly puts his visual stamp on the action within the ring. Slo-mos and zooms zip around the open space to emphasize every inch of pummeling these shirtless bodies endure. This movie absolutely does not shy away from the blood and bruises inherent to the subject matter. This isn’t a revolutionary take, but it is an effective one, and I found myself wincing more than I’d hoped to. And with that in mind, I couldn’t help but wonder if we as a species should just retire boxing once and for all. Now, I’m no expert on the sport’s modern rules and regulations, so maybe there are sufficient precautions to prevent any tragedies. But it’s still a fundamentally violent pursuit, and Creed III very much underscored that truth.

As for the relationship drama, it’s positively Shakespearean, and deployed with maximum operatic tumult. Dame is like a Falstaff cast out of the kingdom, but much more dangerous than that jolly royal companion. I was a little surprised by just how animalistic Majors allowed himself to be. At this point, Creed has established its own identity separate from its Rocky origin, and that was true even before Sylvester Stallone decided to sit this chapter out. Even so, Creed III has no interest in forgoing the standard training montage and climactic title bout. But when the storytelling instincts are so strong, and the actors are so unflinchingly committed, the power of the straightforward storytelling comes through.

Creed III is Recommended If You Like: Letters from prison, ASL conversations, Yet another training montage

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Title Matches

This Is a Movie Review: ‘Creed II’ Draws From the ‘Rocky’ Franchise’s Past With Both Predictable and Resonant Results

November 20, 2018

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CREDIT: Barry Wetcher/Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures/Warner Bros. Pictures

This review was originally posted on News Cult in November 2018.

Starring: Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson, Phylicia Rashad, Dolph Lundgren, Florian Munteanu, Wood Harris, Russell Hornsby

Director: Steven Caple, Jr.

Running Time: 129 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Swollen Shut Bruised Eyes and Other Boxing Injuries

Release Date: November 21, 2018

The first Creed was just about as crowd-pleasing a blast of a fighter and young man coming into his own as the original Rocky was. And now with Creed II … Adonis Creed’s story continues. If you agree that Michael B. Jordan delivered some much-needed energy as the new lead character in this franchise, you may very well be invested in seeing where it goes from here. But it is hard not to prevent it from all being episodic in a way that sequels like these can so easily be. And naturally enough, just as Rocky II featured Rocky and Adrian marrying and having a son, Creed II features Adonis and Bianca (Tessa Thompson) marrying and having a daughter. If you have a heart and any appreciation for family whatsoever, it’s certainly affecting, but also strikingly predictable.

But ultimately Creed II is more of a direct follow-up to Rocky IV, as Adonis squares off against Viktor Drago (Florian Munteanu), son of Ivan (Dolph Lundgren), who beat Adonis’ dad Apollo in the ring so badly that he died from the fight. Rocky’s bout against Ivan was a symbolic Cold War-era standoff, and an American-Russian rivalry is the most culturally relevant it has been since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. While that subtext can easily be found if you want to examine it, the more prominent theme is the difference in coaching styles. The family and friends in Adonis’ corner offer him no-strings love and support, whereas Ivan constantly reminds his son that he will be a disappointment to his whole country if he does not win. By the end, there is a pivot that demonstrates that the Dragos have a more loving relationship than we are initially privy to, and I would have loved to have seen more of that. We get plenty of scenes with the Munteanu and Lundgren, but if they had been even more the mirror image of what Jordan and Sylvester Stallone do together, Creed II could have been a whole lot more magical.

Creed II is Recommended If You Like: Rocky completism

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Title Belts