I have, finally, written a review that doesn’t have spoilers in it. Whew, that was hard. Sequels are tricky – you want to get the past right but you don’t want to dwell. The pitch and the tone here was perfect.
All of us have some nostalgia for parts of the past that also have painful trauma that keep us stuck in a painful pattern of some sort that it feels like we can’t rewrite. Creed II helps us ask ourselves if we are really fighting to write a new story or if we like the old one better. In this way, it’s deeply satisfying because it evokes memory and tradition while also keeping an eye on the future.
Boxing, after all, is a fight against another person, but before that, it’s a battle with your heart and mind for the soul, for the self to be whole, to be free.
Joshunda Sanders 