‘Creed III’ isn’t a knockout, but it can take a punch. Michael B. Jordan makes an impressive directorial debut.

The Creed movies are about a man fighting his past. In Creed III, he literally gets in the ring with it.

At the start of Creed III, Adonis (Michael B. Jordan, also making his directorial debut) is retired from boxing. He’s living the great life in a modern, palatial Los Angeles mansion. He’s still with his beautiful, talented music-producing wife (Tessa Thompson), and their daughter (Mila Davis-Kent) is a charmer, who may have inherited the family’s boxing gene. But that’s for Creed VI.

Adonis’ life takes a turn when he’s visited by Damian Anderson (Jonathan Majors, who seems to be in every other movie opening), his former boxing buddy and L.A. Golden Gloves champ, just getting out of prison after 18 years for a crime that didn’t seem to warrant such a long stint in the joint.

Damian is bitter and angry, a young Mike Tyson of coiled energy and power. He resents Adonis’ charmed life because he thinks it should have been his. Damian was the rising boxing phenom, little Adonis carried his bags. And when the going got tough, Adonis split, and Damian took the fall.

Now it’s payback time.

Decades since his amateur glory days and in spite of never fighting as a professional, Damian wants Adonis to help him get a title shot. But when Adonis’ timetable is too slow for Damian, he takes matters into his own hands.

It all culminates with a big fight, at Dodger Stadium no less, and Damian’s anger-fueled quest to bring down Adonis and Adonis Inc. lures Adonis out of retirement to reclaim his crown and knock Damian down a peg.

But the story is a bit rushed, when a slower burn with more detail is needed. These movies work best with a clear underdog vs. bad guy and the teen-years relationship between Adonis and Damian is too complex to lead to a solid rooting interest when we get to their face-off in the ring. Damian may be an ex-con who can’t cage his fury, but he does have a reason to be angry. Plus, Adonis, thanks to his sneaky mom (Phylicia Rashad), did wrong Damian when he needed their support.

My personal pet peeve, as it was with the original Rocky movies, is that these guys aren’t heavyweights. They may have giant pecs, but they’re the size of middleweights — and there’s nothing wrong with fighting for the middleweight title. The present WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury weighs 270 pounds. Michael B. Jordan, muscles and all, would look like a hobbit next to him. This is made clear with the Creed III casting of professional boxer Jose Benavidez as one of the movie’s reigning heavyweights. In his boxing life, Benavidez fights as a welterweight.

Filmgoers, however, are not going to the movies for a lesson on boxing weight classes.

Everything about Creed III is solid, and Jordan does a professional job in his first go at directing. The sweat-flying boxing scenes are fierce and bloody, and Majors is a force. It’s easy to see why he’s working so much. Creed III isn’t a knockout, but it can take a punch. Rated PG-13. Premieres Friday, March 3, in theaters.

‘Return to Seoul’

A young woman adopted as a baby by a French couple returns to Korea in search of her biological parents. Starring Park Ji-min. Written and directed by Davy Chou. Cambodia’s international entry for this year’s Academy Awards. Rated R. Premieres Friday, March 3, at the PFS Bourse.

‘Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre’

Guy Ritchie (Sherlock Holmes, Snatch) directs Jason Statham, Delaware’s Aubrey Plaza, Cary Elwes, Hugh Grant, and more in a comedy spy thriller with a mission to save the world. Rated R. Premieres Friday, March 3, in theaters.

‘Love at First Kiss’

Spanish rom-com about a man who can see how an entire relationship will play out when he has the first kiss. He’s a smooch operator. Starring Alvaro Cervantes. Directed by Alauda Ruiz de Azua. Not rated. Premieres Friday, March 3, on Netflix.