After taking the heavyweight title three years ago, Creed, a.k.a. Adonis Johnson (Michael B. Jordan), is finally working up the nerve* to ask his girlfriend Bianca (Tessa Thompson) to marry him in the wake of winning a championship bout. But there’s an opponent over in the Ukraine also preying on his nerves, one Viktor Drago (Florian Munteanu), a giant fighting machine who just happens to be the son of the man who killed Creed’s dad Apollo in the ring a generation earlier in “Rocky IV,” he being Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren).

Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) advises Creed not to fight Viktor Drago. From what we see of Viktor in his training sessions, the man is a monster. Several inches taller than his American opponent, he looks like he could KO* Creed in one round and then take on Dwayne Johnson and Vin Diesel just for laughs. As for his dad, Ivan has led a miserable* outcast’s life since disgracing the USSR, with his loss to Rocky, but is in line for rehabilitation* if his son wins the crown.

With Adonis looking like a little kid up against a monster, the champ gets clobbered* right off the bat*. “Break him!” Ivan commands of his boy, and so he does, but then Viktor is disqualified, therefore technically leaving the crown on the head of the American who’s just been beaten.

Of course, this mistake is remedied* for the inevitable rematch.

Sadly, Thompson’s Bianca, such an important figure in the first film, has lost most of her charm. The pic’s focus shifts briefly to the birth of her baby, who has a disability*, and then to Bianca’s musical activities.

The main thing, of course, is that Adonis needs to figure out how to get it together and beat Viktor.

Later, Adonis enters the ring in Moscow as a 25-to-1 underdog*, but Rocky knows all about being underestimated* and conveys his positive karma to his charge, and no one in the audience can doubt how the fight will go.

One of the film’s fleeting* pleasures is to see Brigitte Nielsen pop up in a couple scenes as Ivan’s ex. Another blast from the past is Bill Conti’s original “Rocky” theme, which surges onto the soundtrack at a key moment.

(SD-Agencies)