Sixth and hopefully last of the (rickety) Rocky Franchise boxing movies. It’s hard to hold a Zimmer Frame in boxing gloves.
Actually, this is better than I thought it would be. The first Rocky is a true classic piece of cinema, and the first two sequels were certainly entertaining. Rocky’s four & five were embarrassing. This one goes some way to redeem and close the story.
As it starts, Rocky is lamenting the past. His wife, (played in the other films by the under-rated Talia Shire) is dead. Rocky runs a restaurant with her complete slob of a brother, the excellent Burt Young, (who gives the film’s best performance, though Stallone is also good).
Rocky’s constant reminiscences of the past actually irritate Burt Young’s character, which would rather put the past behind him. He snaps at Rocky that for most people, life isn’t about success, but taking the beatings with some dignity and managing to keep going no matter how hard life gets. This then becomes the film’s manifesto message as Rocky embraces the philosophy to the full.
Computer simulation Boxing game shows what happens if boxers of the past met the champs of today, and pitches a virtual Rocky against the current world heavyweight chump – er champ of the World. He is a young hot-headed arrogant boxer of the Prince Nazeem tradition, who looks pretty and has a reputation for flooring opponents fast so he never takes any pain himself. He is good, and has a reputation for keeping his title by taking on only easy opponents.
Rocky decides that he needs a challenge and offers to take him on. Ridiculed by many, he perseveres, gaining permission to take on the champ for what is supposed to be an exhibition fight, but everyone, including Rocky, knows that it is really going to turn into a proper slug fest.
There is a long, dull sub-plot in which Rocky helps out a young girl from the neighborhood and gets her a job in his restaurant. He has no actual love interest in the whole film.
There is a ten-minute montage of Rocky training himself up, with the inevitable run up the Philadelphia Stairs set to the well-known theme song. Then finally, comes the fight.
Stallone looks well and convincing as an ageing pugilist, and the fight scenes are well staged. There is a tendency to cut to black and white to give some memory of the more savage fighting in Raging Bull (also parodied in Rocky’s Restaurant monologue speeches). The fight hinges on expectations that Rocky will be out cold in the first round, but he hits back hard, and though ultimately losing on points, he takes a pounding right to the end, and gains the respect of the new generation of boxer, as the moral of the theme is spelt out over and over again.
There are many unconvincing aspects to the story – Rocky has no money despite the wealth and fame his boxing must have brought him. He never explains why he still lives in the slums and dresses just as he did in the first film. His sentimentality over the past is touching at first but the scenes of him reminiscing drag on for an eternity.
We don’t really get to know Rocky’s opponent well enough – though a passable and interesting character, he is not like the earlier ones like Apollo Creed or Mr. T, or Dolph Lundgren.
The absence of Adrian (Talia Shire) is also rather sad. The terrific actress wanted to be in the film, but Stallone wrote her out for reasons not yet made clear, but possibly to play on the pathos of Rocky over her demise. She is seen only in fleeting flashbacks to the earlier films, as is the late great Burgess Meredith, who was so memorable as the trainer in the first film.
The best bit? The closing credits sequences of ordinary people, mostly kids running up the Pennsylvania stairs to the theme music for the series.
Arthur Chappell
LINK TO THIS PAGE http://arthurchappell.me.uk/film.review-rocky.balboa..htm
LINKS TO OTHER PEOPLES PAGES E-mail arthur@chappell7300.freeserve.co.uk
UPDATES MYSPACE - http://www.myspace.com/arthurchappell
FACEBOOK - http://profile.to/arthurchappell/
FACEBOOK BLOG http://apps.facebook.com/blognetworks/blogpage.php?blogid=85623
MY BOOKS - http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=952521