Saw #Creed3 today ... Minor spoilers ...
I was interested to see how Michael B. Jordan did in his directing debut, especially since he's also playing the lead character. The answer is quite well; he wisely kept most of the story spotlight on Donnie's antagonist, Damian "Dame" Anderson. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Jonathan Majors gets an Oscar nod for Best Supporting Actor; reading his bio, his early childhood mirrors his character, so he had plenty to mine. (1/x)
Mila Davis-Kent might be a Best Supporting Actress candidate for her portrayal of Amara, the deaf daughter of Donnie and Bianca. Mila herself is deaf. (2/x)
This is the first of the Creed films without Sylvester Stallone. In fact, there are no prominent white characters in the film. There's a cinematic trope known as "white savior narrative" in which white people (typically white males) inevitably are presented as superior to minorities, and therefore save the day. In the first two Creed films, Donnie needs Rocky to train and inspire him. In "Creed III" Donnie is on his own, and must find his own way to salvation. (3/x)
The film unapologetically uses the "n-word" in depiction of certain black subcultures. In fact, I found myself musing how this series began in 1976 as an implausible feel-good story about an Italian-American living in Philadelphia, only to wind up 46 years later as a gritty examination of African-American subcultures and how they can clash when two men try to escape their shared past. (4/x)
On a 10 scale ... 8.5. It's rated PG-13 but I would have given it an "R" for the racist language and the explicit violence. (5/5)