Both Sides
A film review podcast between a film student, and a film industry outsider, about a film. https://www.youtube.com/@BothSides_Podcast
Both Sides
#4. Creed II (2018) w/ Michael #filmreview
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In this podcast, Andrew reviews Creed II with Michael.
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Comment about films you guy's want to see, and I'll credit you.
~ HOST ~
Andrew Heilman is a student film producer, owner operator of Heilman Productions (a free-lance media/film production company in Silicon Valley) and social media editor.
~ GUESTS ~
The guests for this show are people who are not actively seeking a career in the film and television industries.
Welcome to Both Sides, a podcast between a film industry insider and an outsider to get their unique perspectives on movies. I'm your host, Andrew Heiman. I'm the owner of a production company, a camera operator, editor, and film student. Today my guest is my friend and combat sports fan, Michael, and we'll be watching Creed 2. Stay tuned till the end to hear our final reviews of the film. And in case you need a refresher or you've never seen it, here's the story in a nutshell. At the beginning of Creed 2, Adonis Creed becomes heavyweight champion, but his life is disrupted when Victor Drago, the son of the man who killed his father, Apollo, Adonis's father, challenges him to a fight. Ignoring Rocky's warnings, Adonis accepts and is badly beaten in their first match, leaving him injured and emotionally defeated. In the middle and end, Adonis rebuilds himself with Rocky's help and prepares for a rematch, focused on proving himself rather than seeking revenge. In the final fight, Adonis defeats Victor after Ivendrago stops the match to protect his son, and both families find a sense of redemption and enclosure. Now, let's talk about this movie.
SPEAKER_02Wowie, wowie.
SPEAKER_01So, what did you think?
SPEAKER_02Wow. Like, that's all I can say. Like, that was the best by far out of all of them. It it's not even close to me. The other there is other great ones, like I said, and this is exactly why I was saying that I wanted to wait. I know that you're gonna ask me eventually how I rate this movie. This is exactly what I was waiting for. This is like the Magnum opus. This is the 10 out of the 10. There is no doubt about it in my mind. At least to me, obviously. But that was incredible.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I was getting I don't cry very often when it comes to movies. I only really like get emotional or teary-eyed when it when the movie I watch has some sort of uh almost spiritual-like uh relevance in my life. Um like, but you know, I was starting to feel it a little bit at the end of that movie. That movie was because it's the culmination of so many story arcs and characters' lives, and it's so it's just a great way to resolve things. You can feel that this movie has a certain finality that they were expecting to be the like the kind of the end, the end note of the entire franchise. They did end up making one more Rocky movie, Creed III, um, but it I didn't really like Creed III as much. I'm the kind of person that wants an ending to things. Like, I s Toy Story 3 to me is like one of the most perfect ending movies of any trilogy franchise I've ever seen. And the fact that they made two more afterwards kind of just totally spits in the face of what Toy Story 3 was trying to do. And I feel like a similar thing was happening because I this is like the perfect time to end. Um even with the villain, I think the Drago family i is the most interesting villains in this franchise because they're the least cartoonishly evil out of all of them. Um and I love to see them, like at the end of this movie, after um Ivan loses the f uh Victor loses the fight, he's running with his dad just because, and that's that's a symbolic of their relationship healing after um Ivan just, you know, f absolutely laying down all of his insecurities and everything on his son to try to make sure that he could finally prove himself to his wife and his country, or his ex-wife and his country and all that stuff, and then to see their relationship heal by that simple shot of them running, and then to see the relationship with Rocky and his son get back together after Rocky lost his wife, Adrian, and even looking at his kid and saying, Oh, you look just like you just you look just like your dad's mom or my wife, and you know, he actually did. That was great casting because that little kid actually did look like Adrian. Um but it's like that's what you want in an ending. You want things to be resolved. It's kind of like a, you know, kind of this like predictable, you know, whatever audience serving kind of ending. It's not the most artistic or innovative or whatever, but it's very healing and it definitely makes one feel uh fulfilled.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean I w I was at first like taking small notes, like just trying to remember the scenes that I liked, but dude, I slowly just decided to stop that because I'm not joking. It was like every scene was just as captivating as the next. I don't think I've ever been pulled through a movie that well. I don't know. And I mean, obviously there's better executed ones, but for me, since I'm such a combat sports fan, that was I can't imagine that there's a better one. Especially after watching the whole series like we have. That there's just no way.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, the full series was definitely leading up, in my opinion, to that movie as being like the absolute peak of it. And we definitely wouldn't get the same feeling or appreciation if we hadn't watched the last, what has it been, seven Rocky movies or whatever? Um, because they they add to these characters, and it's the same thing with the Karate Kid franchise, if anyone's ever watched them, um, with the TV show, the Cobra Kai uh TV show, that show has such a significance to it because there has been this just story that we've walked through as an audience. Um I thought that it was it was really really really well done. Are there any moments that you think really stand out? I know that you just said all of them kind of stood out, but was there like a favorite moment of yours?
SPEAKER_02I think my favorite was like I think it was Rocky and Ivan meeting in Rocky's like restaurant.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, or whatever it was.
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah, yeah. Um I thought at first, because that whole time I thought Ivan was honestly going to come a little bit more like chill and respectful, but he didn't. And I thought that that amped the scene way a lot, and I thought it was really like crazy that the son would be there. Like, I mean, like, come on, dude. You're now in t this is like senior abuse, like this is a little bit crazy.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But uh, so I really liked that scene. That scene's probably the one painted out uh to me the most.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I like that scene a lot because you have this character meet this other character, and this character absolutely destroyed him. And that's that's one of my favorite things about Rocky IV, is that all of these different movies show a little extra side of the sport and show a little extra side of the world, including in Rocky IV, it takes a pretty heavy political stance with the state of Russia and American relations during the 80s, during the um uh you know, the kind of slowing down/slash aftermath of the Cold War. Um, so it has a very political feel to it. Um, and that was one of my favorite things about Rocky IV. And to see this character lose this, you know, first country, this huge political, humiliating battle, go and see Rocky Um that has that significance. And I don't think that he was going in with like uh people criticize that actor's um acting style a lot, uh Lolf Dungren. They don't really consider him like an incredible perfect actor, but that scene is a great example of his acting prowess because I don't think that he came in and pulled the um the kind of like mean guy card too much. I think he came in with a humanity that he couldn't have come in with if he was just a cartoonish villain who said, you know, I will break you and all that kind of stuff. Um he came in and as kind of like this imposing force, but still had that kind of that kind of respect for Rocky where he was kind of just like you know, keeping his distance and not being like too crazy. He didn't come in like swearing at him or throwing punches or anything. He was very he was very reserved, which I thought was a great choice both from a writing decision and from an acting decision.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, he was like pride, he's still a prideful person and stuff like that. So I'm glad that they took it that way too, and they didn't do something silly like made him some big beefed up yeller or something like that. And I just like how it kind of started like uh respectful, but then they just kept the littlest of jabs kept going and going, and then finally like it just broke down and then he was like Dragon, well he became very like sinister. You know what I mean? Like I there was like there's a little bit of respect, then there was the vulnerability of him admitting what Rocky did to him, and then it turned into a defense mechanism, maybe, and he turned like very sinister about it. It was cool.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and then walking out of the building with his son looking at a uh picture frame of Apollo and going, this nice picture, and it's like that's that's just an extra little little crazy job.
SPEAKER_02That's what I'm talking about. Like, bro, just is running his mouth like every chance he gets, man. Like he's like, my son's gonna win. I ain't got nothing to worry about. I'm just gonna fucking yap. Well, yeah look who's yapping now, buddy.
SPEAKER_00A thing that I really liked about this movie is um there's a specific piece of advice that Rocky gives Apollo a lot, um, and it's referenced in the script. Basically, in my understanding with script writing, if you really want the audience to understand something, or you know, you have to reiterate a point a lot, and the best way to do that is with dialogue. So let's say if a character if a character can't hear, um, in a random movie, a character can't hear, you have to remind the audience that they can't hear every once in a while if you don't make it visually clear, and you do that by having people in the story tangentially um tell other people in the story that so-and-so can't hear. Like through dialogue, you reiterate points that you really want the audience to know about, or else they're gonna forget about it if it's a vital piece of information that they don't have the time to show visually on screen. And one of the pieces of advice that Rocky keeps giving him is to um I forget the exact wording, but it's it's to endure, basically. Um to like to like get the keep getting hit, basically. Like you have to it it had something to do with endure with enduring, like you have to keep getting yourself hit. You have to keep taking the pain, something like that. And that's exactly what is the best advice Rocky could give to him because that's how Rocky won the fight, the original fight with Drago. Drago was way more powerful than Rocky in terms of sheer punching power, and Rocky was only able to win that fight when he just kept getting back up and not falling down and and losing it. He was able to endure. And that piece of advice coming from Rocky, given to Creed, I think helped Creed survive uh his final fight with Ivan. And in fact, I I'd go as far to say I think Creed Adonis would have lost that fight with Ivan if Ivan didn't lose um his motivation to keep fighting when his mom walked out of the of the arena. Because I think that that was obviously Ivan is the and that's just a great writing decision because Ivan is how do you take a character that the audience wants to win and fight him against another character that is cartoonishly um invincible? And there are there are very, very limited ways to do that. And I I I feel like it did it even better than in Rocky IV, where Rocky went after um Drago and won that fight, because in Rocky IV, Drago just kind of loses. Um Rock Rocky just keeps getting back up and then and just knocks out Drago. But it makes it so much more specific in this movie why how in the world a character like this could beat a boxer like that? I don't know if that's a if that's a realistic thing that sometimes you can have the the smallest, most simplest boxers beat these big, you know, these big Goliaths because the Goliath that just loses the reason to keep fighting. What do you think about that?
SPEAKER_02Well, I'm sure it's possible, and uh do I have a specific ma uh memory of it happening? Uh not really, but I'm sure it would be the same thing. It's not the this one took a much more cinemat cinema cinematic uh view of it, and that's why um you think that because you're digging in a little bit too deep to the story of it, I suppose. The real uh thing of it would be just the loss of motivation in general and energy. Uh Adonis still being there, as you were told, these are 12 rounds, I believe. Um, and as you just heard, he had never been beyond four.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_02So like being that tired, he not only was that tired, but yes, then he lost all motivation to fight because his whole motivation just walked out on him again. Which, like I said, that's such a specific thing. Do I know of it off the top of my head? No. But I'm sure that that's what happened to him. Maybe at least yeah, yeah, no, it definitely did. I mean, that's the exact reason why Drago is because he lost all motivation to fight, and then he just got into a like a pissing fight match with him. Because uh all he had to do was just survive, and he had that decision in the bag. He was dropping Adonis like left, right, and center. He had so many 10-8 rounds, possibly even ten, seven, sixes, who even knows, dude. Like that decision was so in Drago's favor it wasn't even funny.
SPEAKER_01Alright.
SPEAKER_02Because every time you're dropped, you lose a point. Did I uh have I explained how the boxing like rounds work and how they're okay. So like every single time that Adonis hit the ground with a knee at all, like every time he went down, uh that was a point. So he immediately lost that round. And then every more time he hit the ground, he would lose that round. Oh, he could have to be a good one.
SPEAKER_00So he would have he would have won by decision, you're saying, if the if he just kept alive. Um if he didn't round him eventually.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, all Drago had to do was just walk away from him. Like, just like he can't stay away completely because then you get timidity warnings and you could get DQ'd for that. So then you'll just lose for that. So you do have to somewhat be exchanging, but you just be on your back foot and just like make it a really slow and boring fight, you know, just grapple him, grab him, throw jab into a clinch, back away, stay at range, throw jab into the clinch, back away. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00Right. You could have played it much safer and still come out on top.
SPEAKER_02Yes, because he obliterated Adonis in reality. Like, like I said, if that went to a decision, it would have been the most clear decision for Victor that there's ever been.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and it's the only reason I keep pointing to Vic uh Victor's mom, but I really think that it has much more to do with his dad, and his dad kind of driving him to win this fight, and when Ivan comes in and and you know throws the towel and is comforts him and just you know, it's much more there's so much more of their relationship at play with his motivation for fighting, and when Ivan comes in and kind of just like comforts Victor to kind of slow down and stop, and it's not really worth it, and you have nothing to prove anymore, you've already proven stuff to me. That kind of communication was very well done. And in fact, it was throughout this whole movie, their family dynamic hasn't been too vocal, it's been much more visual in terms of the actual filmmaking aspect of it, where we feel the significance of, like in their first dinner scene, we feel the significance of um the the wife slash mom come through into the kitchen and then uh into the in the dining room and then come sit down. We feel that significance without even um a line of dialogue being exchanged until uh later, because we get to see the reactions of these characters as they see the point of significance. And that's that's one thing. You can't just show something that's supposed to have significance. You have to show the thing that's supposed to have significance and the characters reacting to the thing with significance. That's what makes the whole scene work. And like like again, I'll say I think the Drago family is not only are they some of the most interesting villains in the franchise, but I think they're some of the most interesting villains in all cinema. I mean, when we think of the of all filmmaking and cinema of great villains, we think of like Darth Vader, we think of uh Heath Ledger from The Joker, or uh Heath Ledger from The Dark Knight, the Joker character. Um these characters that are intricate, are dynamic, that are interesting, that have stories that we can sympathize with, that we can see the humanity in them, and that's what makes the Drago family so interesting, I think.
SPEAKER_02They if they really were played like very strangely, and I think that that was very emblematic of the Russian elite. Like they were a very stoic uh group of people, especially the pe uh the class of Russian elite that comes from the Soviet Union, that would be very, very, very like stoic. So I think that that was just so happened to add into everything you're talking about, because that's probably pretty accurate to how they would just be acting in real life.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_02Uh very weird society that's hard to even comprehend.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And that's why now then you take all that and you go into why this whole set thing gets sets up with why the like what I would call the Eastern block or I guess or whatever, um, you know Eastern European, Ukrainian, Russian, any of these kind of fighters, whatever you want to call them, uh they come from a life of nothing but this. Where there are some fighters who come from that in America and stuff like that too, but then once they get a little success because we have a system all set up and all that, they get out of that like very quickly. Um when you have a fighter that hungry who truly has nothing, and he will have basically nothing until he gets to the UFC or something big, like the championship belt in boxing or something like that. Um You're just gonna be looking. Oh my god, I just blinked so hard. What what was I just talking about, Andrew?
SPEAKER_00You're talking about the kind of fighter that comes out of uh Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah.
SPEAKER_02Okay, I'm sorry. I don't know why that happened. But um They are there's nothing but fight in them. They're so hungry that that's one of the reasons why Rocky was like, you have a kid. You have like these guys, they are nothing but fight. You have everything to lose. They have nothing to lose. So they'll throw it all in there. And you might not do that. And that's the difference between the first and the second fight. He got his ribs broken in both fights. The second fight was even deeper in, which means he's even tired, which means it has even more effect. And it's already taken some damage from throughout the rest of the fight. So it's like a much more devastating injury to happen later in the fight. And he still gets and he digs through it. Like you said, Rocky keeps telling him you what he's basically telling him is you have to want to be there. You can't just be there. You have to want this. You have to want the punches. You have to show him you want it. And Adonis he keyed in to the Rocky style, because that is exactly what it was. But he keyed into the Rocky style with Adonis' skill. And you've seen how that was leading to him ripping off these nasty, tur terrible combos. Which actually also goes to show you how much better this the victor was than Ivan. Because I think if Ivan was being hit with those equivalent combos, he would have been put out.
SPEAKER_00You're talking about when Ivan would have been in his prime? Yeah, like not as like a seven-year-old man fighting Adonis.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no. In his prime, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like if Adonis fought Ivan Drago that Rocky fought, Adonis, I think, is absolutely smashing him.
SPEAKER_00And what I'm that really shows is the increase of skill from Ivan's time to Adonis' time, or Victor's time, because um, and that that's still that's another great thing about this about franchises leading up to things, is because in the third movie, Rocky was able to get trained by Creed, um, by Apollo Creed to fight Mr. T. He's able to pass down the knowledge he learned from Creed to Creed's son way later in the future, where if he wasn't trained by Apollo, he wouldn't have Apollo's techniques and all this kind of stuff. So Adonis, by relation, has all of the skills of his father and all of the skills of Rocky, which is another awesome thing about Rocky is Adonis has no one in his life really to teach him how to be like how to take the best skill from his dad. Um, with like maybe the exception of his dad's trainer, the his dad's trainer's son, who own owns that one gym, and he goes over and talks to that guy a lot. But he gets like the purest form of the information of how to fight from Rocky through his experience with Apollo in Rocky III. So that's like an example of a setup that absolutely serves this story in a way that it couldn't work if we hadn't seen him go through that in Rocky III.
SPEAKER_02And that is what has made this whole experience so sick, and that's what made that movie so fucking amazing. Like that was the best movie of the whole series. That was amazing.
SPEAKER_00It absolutely had a an incre it just goes to show how well made and well constructed and well written this movie was. We were even talking before uh the movie ended about how the fact that so this movie is separated into two fights. There's the fight for the title that Drago has in Los Angeles, and then there's the the fight that uh Drago has for the title again against Creed in Moscow. And in the LA fight, um Apollo, uh Adonis I if I said Apollo, I apologize. Uh I'm talking about the Adonis fights in uh uh Creed too. But um Adonis fights Adonis fights um Victor, but he doesn't lose, he doesn't lose the fight by decision or lose the fight by knockout. He s kind of wins by disqualification of Victor. He would have lost that fight by knockout if Victor didn't punch him in an illegal way. Now, if he had lost that fight by knockout, not only would we not really, I mean, we could do that whole movie rematch thing again where he loses the title and comes back like we've done before, which would have been fine, it just wouldn't be original. But the original, more interesting way is that he wins the fight, but just barely wins the fight because Victor disqualifies himself. And not only is that an original cool way to come back and then to have Apollo win the fight, but it gives Adon uh Adonis, I mean, it gives Adonis so much more leeway in the second fight because if Adonis had lost that first fight, then who knows if he would have gotten another uh another fight. I have a feeling Victor wouldn't let him fight him again in the story, but the fact that Adonis won the fight kind of gave him a shot at a second fight. Um, and that was just a brilliant writing decision that just goes to show how how awesome the these screenwriters really know how these characters work and how the the psychology of these fighters um and the the politics at play that they have over each other.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I agree. It really it that's why like I was gonna say, maybe like the s maybe, I don't know, you're more attuned to like the actual like shots and how good they were. You were talking about that one scene that looked like a very obvious green screen of LA. I thought that was funny. But uh like so, in terms of like the actual like how real did it or how good did it feel on the technicality side, that would be up to you to talk about. But how good did it feel to the layman watching? I thought it looked fucking incredible. I thought they shot the scenes really good. I did see what you were talking about, and there was a weird part also in the LA fight where Victor kind of looks like a video game character the whole time.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, he feels he feels kind of like composited in or rotoscoped in or like keyed in, like he wasn't in that ring, and then they kind of just added him in afterwards because I don't know, something about like the lighting looked weird on him. We're talking about the first fight. The lighting looked weird on him, he looked like the motion was a little different. Um, I don't know what that was. Another thing, when they get to the desert uh gym for the first time, there's so much ADR. Like ADR is um automatic dialogue replacement, and basically what that means is when you film a scene, you obviously uh when you're filming a scene with audio, you obviously have a uh a um a boom operator or someone puts a lav mic on them, a lavalier mic, a little clip-on mic under their under their clothes to capture their sounds. Um and when you have bad audio, you have to dub it back in later in a studio. So they edited basically in that scene where they pull up to the the dirt the dirt desert gym, you they cut from the person talking so that the person talking is off-screen um and you can't see their mouth move, and you have these wide shots where their mouths aren't moving, but you can hear them talk. Um, and it's just a weird like technical issue that they had. And normally with ADR, you can fix it, but I wouldn't fix it. Like if I were on the set and my sound guy would be like, the sound of the wind is too much or whatever, we're gonna have to add the voices in post. I'd say, you know, you can let it slide for a line of dialogue or two, but for like a full almost like 30-second long scene, I would just reshoot the entire thing. I wouldn't add that much ADR into the movie because it makes it very obvious that that's a that's a real technical problem. Um, if I was the director and I had the money and I could choose a lot of these kind of decisions are made on the fly of whether or not they have time to reshoot and that kind of stuff. But I noticed that. I noticed the outside of the windows of their apartment look didn't it look didn't look right. I noticed the the composite. Um there was just a bunch of weird technical issues that I haven't seen in a few of the other Rocky movies. I think it was also maybe had a hand in it because there was a new director. Um the the first Creed was directed by Ryan uh Kugler, I think. And then this movie, I f I forget the name of the director, but it's a new director, so maybe it was like, I don't know, one of his first first big movies or whatever, and he was he made he was making some interesting plays in terms of what was being allowed on screen from a filmmaking perspective. Um But I would say that this movie's like a 10 out of 10 if it weren't for these, but that's it's the kind of movie that the most valuable emotion, the most valuable asset that you have as a storyteller is the audience's suspension of disbelief, which is basically everyone knows that these are not real boxers, these are not real characters, whatever, this is it's all an illusion, it's all fake. But the suspension of disbelief gives the audience the opportunity to explore these feelings, these emotions, or whatever in the form of these characters. And, you know, people are willing to put away, put are willing to put go past bad audio, bad visuals, bad special effects, whatever it is, whatever, whatever problem that you have, people people think that, um, people say that The Godfather is one of the best movies of all time, if not the greatest movies of all time. And that movie is chock full of problems from an ancient archaic filmmaking practice. But people are willing to put those errors aside for their suspension their suspension of disbelief to really enjoy the story because it's that compelling, it's that good. So, any, you know, critics will knock down a movie for for technical errors just because, but I like to give credence to movies with technical errors if they offer a suspension of disbelief that is valuable enough. And this movie is one of those movies where it's just so enthralling, it's so satisfying, it's such a great story that I'm willing to look past errors like that on the filmmaking side of it.
SPEAKER_02I I I was like that's what I was saying. I I probably just didn't notice it because I'm not looking at that kind of stuff really. And I think that that's probably what they were they thought that their characters were so compelling that they could cheapen some of the other things, like the like the the ADR, I think you called it. I noticed that. I noticed it in the club. I was like, this is a very noticeable thing. I didn't notice that. And I was like, kinda I was like, I ha gotta talk to this because that was really weird. Besides that though, that was a kind of a good like I liked what they were doing with the scene, but that was so jarring that even I noticed it. I didn't notice it in the desert. I didn't notice that.
SPEAKER_00I was if you it's only specifically when they pull up.
SPEAKER_02Uh but in the club, I think if you would go back and just take a peek at that scene, you would be like, damn, yeah, that's real bad. I I it like it looked like a bad dub, like so I'm not I'm oh go ahead.
SPEAKER_00Well, I was just gonna say, like another huh? You go ahead. I just talked for Highland.
SPEAKER_02Uh I was just gonna say that so what I think happened was I forgot that I didn't finish this, that um they thought that their characters were so compelling that they could save here and there because they really wanted to spend on the things to make the fights look really real. So their out of the fight scenes were a little bit cheapened here and there because they just saw their character characters were so compelling that the layman, the me, would just be looking at fucking Michael B. Jordan and going, Wow.
SPEAKER_01Whoa.
SPEAKER_02Man, I I I Michael B. Jordan's a good actor, man. No wonder he did so good in Sinners and shit.
SPEAKER_00No, yeah, he deserves the Oscar for Sinners.
SPEAKER_02He got it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, he got it, he won the Oscar for Best Actor in Sinners.
SPEAKER_02That's fucking awesome. I didn't know that's good. Yep, that that he definitely deserves it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and look, there's Oh, go ahead, sorry.
SPEAKER_02I was just gonna say, I was literally just gonna say real quick, uh, that I just think uh Michael B. Jordan is a really good actor. I don't think I've ever seen him in anything I dislike.
SPEAKER_00No, yeah, he for sure. And you know, acting, whether what makes acting good or great is it incredibly subjective. Some people can point to, you know, uh a really dramatic outrage and say, wow, that was great acting, but people could also point to a reaction to a really dramatic outrage and go, oh, that's that's incredible acting. Basically, my opinion on it is that if acting is willing if the actor is willing to convince you that they're not acting, that they're not reading lines off a script, then that's a good actor. And, you know, that doesn't mean that they need to have a crazy emotional outburst, it doesn't mean that they need to be, you know, super and play a super psychotic character or they need a method act. Good acting is just a character that can say things and not have you go, oh wow, that person's saying things in a really robotic, unnatural way. Like they have an inflection to their voice and all kinds of stuff. And, you know, there's when it comes to perfectionism in a movie, there's something to be said about allowing a movie to have these kind of errors in it. Because the kind of movies that like a Stanley Kubrick makes, well, I don't know if you know any about any of the history with the movie The Shining, but that the movie The Shining has the world record for most amount of takes of a movie. And a take is just um the director telling their actors to run the scene again. Um, and I think it's like 154 takes or something. Um, and like that's crazy. And The Shining's a good movie, but it's like what are you when does it end, right? Like could this movie have been so much better technically executed on the filmmaking side of it? Yeah, but are you willing to do that at the expense of your crew, yourself? Are you willing to like go, you know, have insomnia and super anxiety by not having the perfect shot or the perfect dialogue captured? You know, some people just want to go home and you know, after their hard nine to five and be with their kids and not spend every single second of their day thinking about how to technically execute a movie, so I get it. That was all I was gonna say on that part.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I get exactly what you're saying. Like, and that's what I was gonna bring up is like if you know on the more technical side, uh if like there's probably a lot of improvement with that. My my only comment would be then is while they sold it to someone who doesn't look at that uh more technical, like who's someone who doesn't live in the industry, they sold it to me really damn good.
SPEAKER_00I'm not gonna call it.
SPEAKER_02I'm a I'm not a critic. I'm a I'm a casual. And I got casualed. I'm sold. Best movie in the series.
SPEAKER_00I'm a casual critic myself. I'm not I wouldn't call myself a crazy critic, because I think the problem with critics is they're they're trained to be really unempathetic, most of them. They are very black and white people, um, because they have to be kind of in their job. They they find some movie or some series of movies that they consider technically and artistically perfect, and then they judge every movie based on that, but not every movie is trying to be that. You know, if you get like dumb and dumber, or pretty comedies have the worst of it with um with critics, but if you get like dumb and dumber, dumb and dumber isn't trying to be the godfather part two. So don't judge dumb and dumber for not being the godfather part two. But that's their whole thing, is they have to, in this really subjective this medium, you they have to have some sort of subjectivity to it, some sort of um some sort of grounding to what they're rating these movies. Um a nice segue of that, uh, into that. This movie has a Rotten Tomatoes critic score of 83 out of 100%, and it has an audience score of a slightly less, 81 out of 100%. Um you mentioned that this movie would be like 100% for you, that this is like the greatest sequel in the in the franchise, and I 100% agree with that. In fact, I going into this movie, I told you that I really liked it, but I forgot how much I really liked it. It was a similar thing when we watched Rocky II. I love Rocky II. I think Rocky II is my favorite Rocky movie, um, not counting the Creed movies, and might still be my favorite Rocky movie, if not tied or really close with Creed II after watching rewatching Creed II. Um I I love most of the movie. I'm only gonna knock it down a few points because I do see those imperfections. I wouldn't knock it down as much as a critic because I'm giving it some credence, but I'd give it like a 90-96% on Rotten Tomatoes on my score.
SPEAKER_02Then that makes perfect sense. I'm actually super happy it's that high. I thought you were gonna be like 92, and I was like, no! 96, I'll take it's above the 95. I'm happy.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and that's the highest score I've ever given in the movie, I think.
SPEAKER_02It was it's it's also it's impacted before the before the audience roars and complains. It is also impacted by the fact that we watch the whole series in a row now. Every time we hang out, and we watch the last fucking eight movies all in a row, and this just acculminates on everything. All of these character arcs coming together to mix and and they put it all together so perfectly, everything just two hours flew by like it was nothing, or an hour and forty-five, or whatever the hell it was.
SPEAKER_00That's another thing I was thinking about this movie. I I kind of complain a lot about the length of a lot of these movies. Sometimes I think they're too long, sometimes I say they're too short. This movie was perfectly length, in my opinion. I think we got I think we got just the right amount of time with with the Drago family, and just the right amount of time with Rocky and the problems he was going through with his personal life, and just the amount of time, just the right amount of time with Adonis. I think the editing in this movie and the pacing is just about perfect. And I implore anyone who hasn't seen this franchise, you know, we keep saying how good this movie is, but like you said, this movie is not good without, it's not as good without all of the other movies. So if you haven't seen Rockies one through six and the first creed, definitely go back and give those a try because it's worth your time, in my opinion.
SPEAKER_02I agree. I I think it's definitely worth it. Especially if you like you don't have to do it all in a row. Just watch one a week or something. Not one a month, even. Like they do a good job at like not fully recapping themselves, but giving you enough that you're like, oh yeah, this is how this works. This is what happened. Oh, right, okay, yeah, yeah. It it's actually pretty damn good. I thought that the pacing of this was crazy. I didn't know what was going on in terms of like how quickly we got to that first fight. Um for one, we started off the movie with uh him winning in the title fight. Yeah, exactly. Just I thought we were watching a recap because that's how most of the other movies in the entire series go. So there they go, subverting my expectations again by of Donis beating the shit out of somebody and getting the bell. Um and but then we went right into that first uh LA fight between Victor and Adonis so quickly, and I was like, I don't know what's gonna happen here. Like the because the pacing was just it wasn't like it was too fast, like I wasn't complaining about it, but it was so good at just pulling you through, like I said, at a real fast pace. It was like you could feel it crashing towards you. And I honestly really liked it because it really felt like a fight. I was really like, I had no fucking clue what was gonna happen there. And I thought that the the decision to have him lose my DQ like that was so brilliant. I know it's my it might I know it sounds like oh brilliant. Well, he's smoking them. No, I'm just saying that it worked really fucking good at subverting my expectations. I didn't think it was gonna be a goddamn DQ. I thought we were watching Odonis get his ass. Like I thought we were gonna watch Adonis get put in the hospital for like two months, not a week. Like so I thought it was I thought it was a brilliant way to like bring that all up in that crashing crescendo and then like the breaking of Adonis's character so per in that aspect from that crashing crescendo into the rebuild was done so well, in my opinion. Like, I've never felt a pace of a movie like that, and I thought while watching it that it was very captivating. I don't know if you felt a movie like that that went so fast in its beginning to a crescendo. Uh it like started fast and then kept going up at rapid pace, in my opinion, uh, in terms of the importance of what events were happening, and then the crash and that rebuild and how smooth it was. I thought that that transition was really well done.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and there's so much more um we can talk about, and I'm definitely gonna probably call the episode here, and we'll we'll talk a little bit more afterwards, but um there's so much more symbolism, and you know, there it this movie not only there's a few things, but with the symbolism, I love how it really like the character of Adonis is his own character, but he has a little bit of Rocky in him that we see. We get to see him go to like his father's gravestone, which is something that we see um uh Rocky do throughout the franchise go to the gravestones of uh Adrian and and then eventually Polly. Having Adonis do a similar thing for his dad is an incredible genius idea. Um, and then you know, we get to see a little bit of a little bit of that all the time. We get to see that between Adonis and his wife, Bianca, when there's a there's an overhead shot, the camera is looking down on them, and then they lay on the floor. Um, and it's a very it's a very unique shot that is replicated in the first Creed movie, where when they meet eventually, they're listening to music in her apartment, and then they lay down, and it's that same top shot of them, overhead angle, but this time in Creed 2, there's a baby involved, and there's so much filmmaking establishes patterns, they establish themes to to build up these relations to these characters. It's the same thing that you hear all the time with music, and there's so many musical stings that play over and over with these characters, like uh when Adonis wins the second fight and Rocky um is congratulating Adonis, you get to hear Rocky's kind of his kind of sad piano theme that you hear all the time, and it feels so much more gripping because the movie franchise establishes these patterns, and one of the patterns that I noticed was that uh Adonis and Bianca were laying down, and it's that same exact angle, but this time there's a baby involved, and it has so much more significance because it's a pattern and it just it strengthens the relationship even more. I don't know, I thought that was super cool, and there's plenty of plenty more of those in this in this movie that you know it's it's that suspension of my disbelief. I'm willing to look past this movie convinced me that I'm willing to look past all of its errors in favor of its technical brilliance in so many other avenues.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I I agree. Great movie. 100% on Rodden Tavano's.
SPEAKER_00100%. Alright, bye, everybody. Thank you for watching. See you guys later. Um, I I have a little bit of bad news for you, Mike. Um, I don't remember Creed 3 being amazing. Um, we can still watch it, but uh it's it's like that thing I was talking about with the preface where I have this thing for wanting things to end and not go on forever. Um, and when you have an incredible ending like this, it feels kind of eh when you try to continue it, but I still want to watch it because it is the last Rocky movie we haven't seen yet. Um, and I think it would be a nice end for us in our relationship with this franchise.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I I want to watch it too. Because who knows what they're gonna do with it, man. You never know. Maybe they're making fucking nine creeds, and one like Creed 5 is a smashing delight.
SPEAKER_00Alright, audio spy. Thank you for listening to both sides. What movie do you want us to review next? Let me know and I'll credit you in your username. Like and follow if you enjoyed this podcast, and to stay notified of future reviews. Remember, your right to your opinion matters, whether you're an insider or not. Peace out.