Creed II
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) | Release Date: November 21, 2018 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
66
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 46 Critic Reviews
Positive:
30
Mixed:
15
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
CineVueChristopher MachellDec 3, 2018
Rocky has always lived and died on its direct, unsubtle sincerity. It’s in these heartfelt moments where Creed II flies, underpinning its thoughtful climax and one of the series’ most surprisingly moving endings. Read full review
60
L.A. WeeklyAlan ScherstuhlNov 21, 2018
It’s a Rocky movie, just the latest go-round, its story more formulaic, its people less specific, its rhythms as wheezily familiar as a workout you should have changed up weeks ago. It’s a diminishment of Creed, a dumbing down, just as Rocky II was a diminishment of Rocky. Read full review
60
TimeStephanie ZacharekNov 20, 2018
There’s some comfort to be found in the predictability of its beats. But only at the end does it muster any real vitality. Any ribs it breaks along the way have healed seamlessly before you’ve even left the theater. Read full review
60
EmpireIan FreerNov 16, 2018
Creed II is to Creed what the Rocky sequels are to the original: a more generic, less textured take on familiar boxing movie tropes. The difference, it seems, is Coogler. Read full review
60
Screen DailyTim GriersonNov 16, 2018
Contradictory impulses dominate Creed II. This sequel to the 2015 smash hit is both emotional and formulaic, nuanced and shameless, determined to set its own course while slavishly loyal to franchise strictures. Read full review
60
IGNTom JorgensenNov 16, 2018
Creed II, however, can’t seem to let the past go, abandoning the exciting new path blazed by Coogler in favor of evoking what’s come before, with undeniably diminished results. Read full review
60
Rolling StoneDavid FearNov 16, 2018
This is not a reinvention of the wheel, just a rotation of the tires. For a story that started with a young man trying to follow in huge footsteps while blazing his own path, it might be unfair to play the compare game here. Yet Creed II does not give us anything but another, slightly superior Rocky sequel. It wins on points. Just don’t expect a knockout. Read full review
60
TheWrapRobert AbeleNov 16, 2018
The truth is that “Rocky IV” and Creed II sharing the same cinematic universe requires supreme suspension of disbelief. But taken as descendants of the original, “Rocky IV” is the delinquent you never talk about, while Creed II at least knows how to keep the family business humming. Read full review
58
UproxxVince ManciniDec 13, 2018
It’s certainly fair that Creed II would be about fathers and legacies and trying to avenge the family name, but without political context, the big fight is no longer a clash of ideas. Read full review
50
Vanity FairK. Austin CollinsDec 16, 2018
Where Coogler’s movie runs hot, Caple’s runs warm; where Coogler dwells, steeping every scene in a sense of shared history and a love of Philadelphia, Caple takes for granted that this ground has already been sowed. Read full review
50
Original-CinLiam LaceyNov 21, 2018
After the success of Ryan Coogler-directed Creed, an inventive series reboot, Creed II is a familiar disappointment though the "familiar" part will probably outweigh the disappointing part for audiences who enjoy the films as adult bedtime stories. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliNov 20, 2018
By playing things too safe, it loses the power and spontaneity that gave Creed its energy and drive. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineSam C. MacNov 16, 2018
Creed II is absent of both the topically political atmosphere of Rocky IV and the bravura action of Ryan Coogler's Creed. Read full review
50
SlateSam AdamsNov 16, 2018
Coogler’s Creed interrogated the Rocky series, including the great-white-hope subtext of the originals, from the ground up, but Creed II just skims along the surface. Read full review
40
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyNov 16, 2018
Slack and unexciting compared to Ryan Coogler's blisteringly good 2015 reconception of a 1970s icon for modern audiences, this follow-up is an undeniable disappointment in nearly every way, from its dreary homefront interludes to a climactic boxing match that feels far-fetched in the extreme. Read full review
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