WARNING: SPOILERS

It’s really more like “Rocky III,” isn’t it?

Yes, “Rocky IV”’s Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren) returns with a chip on his shoulder and a superpowerful son, Viktor (newcomer Florian Munteanu, hunky), who grew up in the hardscrabble streets of Ukraine, knowing only fighting. But with the help of an African-American promoter who greases gears only to slip back into the shadows—so not exactly Don King—they challenge the new heavyweight champion of the world, Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan), the son of the man Ivan killed in the ring, to a title match. That’s the external drama. It’s “sins of the fathers.” And it’s all about “Rocky IV.”

The internal drama, which is most of the movie, is cut exactly from “Rocky III.” They don’t use the phrase—which has become a cliché and was silly to begin with—but Adonis loses the eye of the tiger. Meaning his motivations for the fight are muddy; his head isn’t right.

Which is weird in itself. Motivation? How about revenge, motherfucker?

Writers wanted
I was surprised to see the film wasn’t directed by Ryan Coogler but Steven Caple, Jr., who has one feature film to his credit: “The Land,” a 2016 indie. Maybe that’s why the movie doesn’t work. Also Sylvester Stallone has a writing credit? 

Actually, who are the writers? The story is by Sasha Penn, who’s mostly a producer with no feature-film writing credits, and Cheo Hodari Coker, who is also first-listed on IMDb as a producer but at least wrote some “Luke Cage” episodes. Screenplay is by Stallone and someone named Juel Taylor—his first. Most of his credits are in Sound: editor, mixer, boom operator.

So it’s mostly non-writers writing this thing. And it shows.

Another reason why it doesn’t work? It brings an indie aesthetic to a genre film. You can do this successfully—as Coogler did with “Creed,” where I wrote, “Coogler opens the windows on this universe without knocking anything over; he just lets the fresh air in.” Well, Caple and company close it again. The movie feels muted to me, and stale.

It begins with our hero winning the title. He’s successful, feted, in love. The small stuff that worked in “Creed”—the back and forth between Adonis and Bianca (Tessa Thompson)—is dullsville here. He proposes, awkwardly, and they visit his mom-but-not-mom, Mary Anne Creed (Phylicia Raschad), who figures out Bianca is pregnant before Bianca does. There’s a lot of this parents-know-best stuff in the movie. Then they worry the baby will be deaf like the mother but should they worry because isn’t she great? Plus Bianca has her music career that nobody watching gives a shit about. That’s a truly painful subplot—never more so than before the final fight in Russia when Bianca precedes the Creed contingent by live-singing a lukewarm melody. I couldn’t even watch; I was embarrassed for everybody involved. I was embarrassed for my country. We rule the world in pop culture and this is what you bring?

Hey does the movie ever give a good explanation why Adonis’ reaction to the Drago challenge is so nothing? Why isn’t he angry? Because he didn’t know his father? Because he resented his father? Because in a short span he’s become too comfortable? The fight arrives 45 minutes in, so we know Adonis will lose. He does and doesn’t. He’s crushed in three rounds, with broken ribs and internal bleeding, but the final blow comes after he’s been knocked down, a violation, so he retains the title. Sure. But all of it is very Clubber Lang in “Rocky III.”

In that movie, Rocky had to get back his tiger-eye by leaving his expensive mansion and training with black fighters in the mean streets of LA. This time, it’s the LA gyms that are too comfortable. So Rocky, who refused to train Adonis for the first fight, drives him into the desert, where they train with ... Mexicans, I guess? Illegals? Who knows? Where is this odd training ground in the middle of nothing? Is it based on anything beyond some weirdo macho fantasy? It’s also close to cultural appropriation: We need your anger over everything you’ve never had so we can battle someone who never had anything. 

The fight scenes are done well, with Adonis slipping in and out of Drago’s punches. I also like Ivan’s story. They give him a kind of dignity and humanity he never had in the cartoonish “IV.” My favorite scene is probably when he shows up at Adrian’s—which is juxtaposed with Adonis learning of the Drago challenge via TV—and he’s subtly threatening. “Because of you, I lose everything. Country. Respect. [Pause] Wife.” It’s a ghost returning with bad thoughts. It’s scary. Good god, who knew Dolph Lundgren could act?

I particularly like him noting all the memorabilia on the wall:

Ivan: Nice pictures.
Rocky: Yeah, they’re okay.
Ivan: No pictures of me.
Rocky: No. There’s no pictures of that.

For Rocky, they’re reminders of tragedy. To Ivan, it’s just another example of him being erased from history.

Main character wanted, preferably single
Most of the rest is sadly dull. Bianca is ... who cares. But this is the bigger problem: Who is Adonis? What is he like? Who are his friends? He has no posse here, no bodyguards, no one beyond Rocky, Bianca and Mrs. Huxtable. Yes, he wants to box—determinedly—then he wants to marry. And beyond that?

Think of the personalities in the “Rocky” series. Start with Rocky, a garrulous nice guy from the neighborhood—too nice to even be a small-time thumb breaker for a local mob boss—so nice and talkative he even tries to give life lessons to teenage girls and gets “Screw you, creepo!” for his troubles. Or how about Apollo in the bigger-than-life mold of Muhammad Ali—talking in rhyme (“Be a thinker, not a stinker”), and taking care of business both in and out of the ring. How about Paulie—sleazy Paulie? Or Mick? Or Duke?

Who is Adonis? What is Creed’s creed—beyond trying to prove himself in the shadow of his famous father? It’s nothing. There’s nothing there.