My Dad, a 'Rocky' Superfan, Has Some Serious Thoughts About 'Creed III'

In the background of many of my childhood memories over the years, Rocky is playing on the living room TV. While I'm sitting at the kitchen table, my dad is on the couch with a bag of Wise BBQ chips—and Sylvester Stallone is on screen with a black eye. As I grew older, the boxer on the TV turned into Michael B. Jordan. But my dad was always there. He's what I would call a Rocky superfan.

And yet, although the theme song and many calls of “Adrian!” are seared in my mind, I don’t recall ever sitting through an entire film of the franchise—until last week. I couldn't think of anyone more qualified than my dad to review the newest film in the series, Creed III, for this magazine, so I had to study up before the interview. Turns out, I really enjoyed the movie, more so than I’d expected to. My dad, the expert? Not so much.

ESQUIRE: So, how long have you been a fan of the Rocky franchise?

STEVEN KRANC: Ever since it started, in 1976.

How old were you?

In 1976? I would have been 11 years old.

Wow. Do you remember seeing the first movie?

I do. We saw it in a movie theater with some friends from school and everybody came out of there super excited.

How many times have you seen it, do you think?

The original? Probably about 40.

Which movie is your favorite?

I'm going to go with Rocky II. It finishes the story of the original movie and gives it some twists and turns, but it comes out with the outcome everybody wishes for in the first movie. All the movies are inspirational and get you hyped, but that one brought it to the pinnacle.

There was one that was always on in the house. Was that the first Creed?

In the last few years, yeah. I have all the DVDs, so sometimes I'll watch that way. Sometimes they have "Rocky Day" on the AMC channel, and it goes through all of them. So whenever that day happens, I watch them. It happens a few times a year.

You have all the DVDs?

I have every one except Creed III so far.

Are you going to get Creed III on DVD?

I will. Because I want to complete the set.

So, what did you think of the movie?

It started out good, and it could have been great, but it was just good because the last 20 minutes they rushed through all the important stuff. In every Rocky and Creed movie, the best parts are always the training and the fight. In this one, it wasn't like that. It didn't do much of either of those. And the fight? I heard that Michael B. Jordan likes anime, so he used that in how he staged the fight. It was all dark around them. They're fighting and you just see their faces—and they see each other—and that’s all.

I felt like it was just about the two of them.

For sure. It wasn't about a boxing match for the heavyweight championship of the world—it was about the two of them reconciling their issues. But you still could make the fight exciting, even with the trainers and his wife sitting around and being involved and watching. Make it more exciting than just two of them in a dark space!

How did you feel about Rocky not showing up in the movie?

They put in a few things that mentioned Rocky, but they did it like: if you know, you know. So right before he goes out to fight with his friend, he's in the locker room saying, "One punch at a time. One round at a time." That's a line that Rocky taught him in the first Creed movie. I don't care that Rocky wasn't in the movie, but they made it like he never existed, which was annoying. Unfortunately, that's because Sylvester Stallone apparently doesn't own the rights to his movies, so whoever was producing it didn't want him part of it. So it was about contracts. Like, they could have said he died, or they could have said he's ill, whatever. He didn't have to be in it—but they didn't have to make it like he never existed.

I'm sure that he didn't want to die just in case he comes back one day.

In a later one, maybe. But they did reference little nuances with him—and they also tried to mention every single person involved in the Creed movies ever in some way. Every boxer was either mentioned or in it, and it was silly because it didn't make sense that that would happen.

What do you mean?

Creed is promoting a fight between a guy he's managing and Viktor Drago, who he beat in the movie before, and then that guy breaks his hand so he can't be in the fight. Then Drago becomes his sparring partner. If he's trying to become the heavyweight champion of the world, that would never happen—that the two guys fighting against each other are working together all of a sudden. It didn't make sense at all. In the very first fight at the beginning of the movie, Creed was fighting Pretty Ricky Conlan, who he lost to in the first movie. But that guy was going to jail, so he was going to lose his title anyway. Now he's like making a comeback and it's a long time later. That was also like, Wait. That guy really shouldn't be in the fighting game anymore. Then they mentioned the other guy he beat, Wheeler. Whatever. They referenced them all.

As a dentist, how do you feel about when Jonathan Majors spit out his tooth? That was pretty gross.

First of all, they never do that realistically. Somebody will break your tooth and break it off at the gumline, but like, your whole tooth isn't going to fall out. That doesn't happen. It was like in the movie Castaway when he had a toothache and he had a skate and he wanted to get the tooth out. So he whacked his tooth as hard as he could with the skate, and then he was relieved after that. But that would not happen.

What did you think of the training montage?

Relative to all the Rocky and Creed movies, it was lacking, for sure. It was pretty short, the music wasn't as intense, and you didn't see so much struggle. Usually in the training sessions, it starts out tough—and they build and build and build until you see they're in peak physical condition. And here they did that a little bit. But it was like, I can't run, and now I'm running up the hill fast and I'm pulling an airplane.

Where does this movie fall into your ranking of all the movies?

Oh, boy. You want me to rank them all in order? Okay. I would say Rocky II comes first. And then Creed. Then I would say the original Rocky would be third. Then I would say Rocky Balboa, which was the sixth one, technically, but it wasn't called Rocky VI. It was called Rocky Balboa. Then I would say Rocky III and then Creed II. I can definitely tell you that Rocky V is the worst—and I'm not the only person that thinks that. Then Rocky IV, I guess, and then Creed III would be second to last.

Wow. So this one really didn't do so much for you.

Not so much. Like I said, it started out well, but the last 20 minutes killed it.

You’re right—the movie wasn't resolved by the fight. Because they just needed to talk. They didn't need to fight. Maybe that’s a weird message for this kind of movie.

I agree. They didn't need to fight—they needed to talk. And Creed needed to explain that Mary Anne kept those letters so that she would keep him away from him because she didn't think much of him, which turned out to be true in a way. He used Creed and he used his friend from jail to ruin the fight.

I felt like the point was there shouldn't have been a fight. They didn't feel good about fighting. So as a viewer, you're not going to feel good about the fight either.

Exactly. In all the other movies, you want the fight to happen and you want him to win the fight. Here, it's like: just explain it to him. That's all. Maybe that’s why he didn't focus so much on the training as much as the other movies, because the fight didn't really need to happen.

Yeah, it wasn't that kind of fight. But I liked the story.

I thought the story was very good, and I thought it was well thought out, and they used all the history from the other movies. But it was more of a drama than a boxing movie.

That's fair. Do you have anything else you want to add?

No, I think I made all my points. There's a lot of little nuances that I'm sure you didn't notice because you didn't see all the other movies. Obviously it can stand alone, but you can’t appreciate all of it without knowing that stuff.

One day I'll watch the whole AMC marathon with you.

Every time it's on, mom walks in the room and goes, "Oh, you put that on again." I'm like, "It's on! I didn't do anything. It's just there."

They program the channel that way, because you watch it all every time.

I think that’s true.

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