Creed II

I loved 2015’s Creed! Ryan Coogler did a phenomenal job at laying the foundation for a new line of Rocky films, and Michael B. Jordan took the torch and ran with it as Apollo Creed’s secret son, Adonis Johnson. I loved the story it told where Johnson tracked down his father’s legendary rival, Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) to be his trainer and the road those two traveled in Creed was an engaging journey throughout. Adonis/Donnie’s story left off in Creed much like the inaugural Rocky where Adonis was the surprise underdog that provided a hell of a fight against the world champion and came within inches of tasting championship gold. For the sequel in 2018’s Creed II (trailer), Donnie wants to pick up where he left off and establish his legacy as the greatest ever. That destiny meets a standstill when an old rival of Balboa has his own protégé that is just as hungry as Donnie.

I saw the initial teaser for Creed II and I could not help myself and get nostalgic for the uber-patriotic Rocky IV that saw Balboa crush communism and bring forth world peace! Embellishing aside, I was ecstatic to see Dolph Lundgren return to portray Rocky’s iconic Russian rival, Ivan Drago. Ivan has been training his son, Viktor (Florian Munteanu) for years as he rose through the ranks of the Ukranian boxing scene. The Dragos were banned from Russia after Ivan’s defeat, and now the two want the payback they feel they rightly deserve by conquering Rocky’s prized pupil. That is a fantastic setup, but unfortunately there are some pacing issues that prevents it from being the ultimate cinematic grudge match.

As I stated in the intro, Coogler was aces in establishing the groundwork for Donnie’s story in the first Creed which is essentially a retelling of the original Rocky for the next generation. Creed II director, Steven Caple Jr. bites a little too much off here by attempting to paste together and contemporize the core arcs of Rocky II through IV. In Rocky II, Balboa and Adrian get married, have a kid and Rocky wins the world title. In Rocky III, Balboa gets full of himself as a dominant champion and suffers a humiliating loss early on. Those two arcs transpire for Donnie in the first half of Creed II’s two hour and ten minute runtime. Donnie wins the title right at the beginning of the film and shortly thereafter proposes to his girlfriend Tessa (Bianca) and they soon after find out they are expecting. An overconfident Donnie is no match for a brooding Viktor who lays waste to Johnson and delivers a crushing beating that absolutely guts Donnie. That sets the stage for the ultimate rematch with Donnie and Viktor in Mother Russia, complete with overblown entrances just like in Rocky IV!

I am not going to lie, but I was a little tepid going into this for my second viewing remembering how they tried to cram too much in. Other than a couple little parts in the opening hour where it is apparent the pacing is too fast, the overall pacing wound up not being as bad as I remembered. A lot of that is attributed to when Creed II finds its footing when Donnie and Viktor first clash in the ring. From there Creed II hits home how devastated Adonis is after the loss and at establishing his path to recovery and also now being a father. I loved the scenes where he finds fatherhood at the gym and how he reconciles with Rocky. This is successfully followed up with the obligatory must-see feel good training montage where Balboa takes Donnie to rediscover himself with an intense desert training camp to recapture the ‘eye of the tiger.’ The final fight between Donnie and Viktor is a terrific ode to the Rocky/Ivan duel. It is an epic, ten round bout, and the thrilling cinematography for it had me as invested as the memorable fights in the first Creed film.

There is a little under an hour of extras included. I would highly recommend diving into the ten minutes of deleted scenes first. There are two scenes there I think could have greatly benefitted the film where Balboa gives a eulogy for his old nemesis, Spider Rico and another that has Donnie and Rocky share mutual respect with the Dragos after their second fight. There are three bonuses all under ten minutes that provide decent character profiles of Viktor, Tessa and establishing the father/son theme of the film. Those three are decent, but I would recommend Rocky’s Legacy as the other must-see extra, which is a great 15-minute piece hosted by Lundgren where he spotlights the Rocky franchise’s classic moments and he later joins Stallone to relive and banter through their epic Rocky IV encounter. I would have loved a feature commentary track with Stallone, Jordan, Lungdren and Florian, but the interviews provided here are a decent substitute.

While Creed II is without a doubt a couple notches under the first film, it provided a better second viewing experience than I anticipated. It quickly recovers from the stumbles in the first half of the film for a truly awesome second half. I am still perplexed as to what happened to the affable Stepps and Marie characters that Rocky Balboa introduced, but was relieved to see one other forgotten character from a prior film make a heartfelt cameo. With that aside out of the way, I feel safe saying Creed II meets the high bar set for the franchise in quality of training montages, epic fights, powerful feel-good moments and eventually comes together as a film worthy of the Rocky/Creed pedigree.



Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs

3
12 Angry Men (1957)
12 Rounds 3: Lockdown
21 Jump Street
The Accountant
Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie
Atari: Game Over
The Avengers: Age of Ultron
The Avengers: Infinity War
Batman: The Dark Knight Rises
Batman: The Killing Joke
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice
Bounty Hunters
Cabin in the Woods
Captain America: Civil War
Captain America: The First Avenger
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Christmas Eve
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special
The Condemned 2
Countdown
Creed
Deck the Halls
Detroit Rock City
Die Hard
Dredd
The Eliminators
The Equalizer
Dirty Work
Faster
Fast and Furious I-VIII
Field of Dreams
Fight Club
The Fighter
For Love of the Game
Good Will Hunting
Gravity
Grunt: The Wrestling Movie
Guardians of the Galaxy
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2
Hell Comes to Frogtown
Hercules: Reborn
Hitman
I Like to Hurt People
Indiana Jones 1-4
Ink
The Interrogation
Interstellar
Jay and Silent Bob Reboot
Jobs
Joy Ride 1-3
Major League
Man of Steel
Man on the Moon
Man vs Snake
Marine 3-6
Merry Friggin Christmas
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster
Mortal Kombat
National Treasure
National Treasure: Book of Secrets
Not for Resale
Pulp Fiction
The Replacements
Reservoir Dogs
Rocky I-VII
Running Films Part 1
Running Films Part 2
San Andreas
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Shoot em Up
Slacker
Skyscraper
Small Town Santa
Steve Jobs
Source Code
Star Trek I-XIII
Sully
Take Me Home Tonight
TMNT
The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2
UHF
Veronica Mars
Vision Quest
The War
Wild
Wonder Woman
The Wrestler (2008)
X-Men: Apocalypse
X-Men: Days of Future Past

Creed

When I wrapped up my series of blogs covering the first six Rocky films last year I stated I would return to this franchise again covering the then-unreleased seventh film in the franchise, 2015’s Creed (trailer). I just finished a second viewing of the film on BluRay, so it is now time to see if this contemporary take on the classic line of boxing films lives up to the brand’s pedigree.

In case you missed the premise behind Creed, it takes place in the present several years after Rocky Balboa. Even though that film ended on a high note Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) is back to being lonely and down in the dumps. His son moved out to Vancouver, his best friend and brother-in-law Paulie has passed away and his newfound friends from the previous film, Marie and her son Steps are nowhere to be seen with no explanation for their absence in this film which I found beyond baffling.

The focus though is not on Rocky who we do not even see until about 20 minutes into the film. Instead this film is centered on the illegitimate son of Rocky’s former rival/friend, Apollo Creed who goes by Adonis/Donnie Johnson (Michael B. Jordan). After a couple early rough childhood flashbacks, we see Donnie just does not have the heart to stay at his office job in LA while he moonlights in the underground boxing scene in Tijuana. After local trainers blackball him for getting professional training, Donnie decides to move to Philly and convinces Rocky to take him under his wing.

Sylvester Stallone gives up the director’s chair to Ryan Coogler, and it is immediately noticeable the contrast between his version of a Rocky movie and a traditional one. This one has a more gritty/street feel to it, and as much as I love the past films, I especially enjoyed Coogler’s vision for the film as his cinematography changes felt more organic and not forced. Rest assured there are still plenty of vintage Rocky moments like a gratuitous amount of training montages along with the expected trademark Bill Conti songs. I do not want to give too much away, but Creed does not shoehorn the classic songs in throughout the film like some may expect and instead saves them for pivotal scenes in the movie that only amplified the scene when I realized that over half the film went by before they were implemented.

This would not be a Rocky film without a romance angle and Donnie’s love interest in this film is his neighbor Bianca (Tessa Thompson). Their scenes developing their relationship feel both different and similar to how Rocky and Adrian first started seeing each other in the very first film. By the film’s end Bianca proves to be just as instrumental for Donnie’s success as Adrian was for Rocky.

Halfway through the film we are treated to the first of the film’s two big fights where Donnie faces off against Leo Sporino (Gabe Rosado). I have never seen a fight shot like this in a movie to the best of my recollection. The best way I can describe it is like there is a stationary camera between the two fighters and it is constantly spinning around with a new dynamic camera angle on one of the fighters kind of like the camera in the classic game Punch-Out! It is incredibly effective at making me feel like you were right there in the fight, and I can only tip my hat for the filmmakers being so brazen to stick with this unique camera shot throughout the entire fight.

Of course the big draw of the film is Donnie’s headline fight against world champion, “Pretty” Ricky Conlon (Tony Bellew). Creed does a fine job antagonizing him by setting him up as a boxer who has one last fight scheduled before he goes to prison for making a terrible mistake, and he wants to capitalize on Donnie’s name by having one more big payday to set up his family before he gets locked up.

The build up to the headline fight hits all the right notes, and if you have seen past Rocky films then you know what to expect, but this time expect a contemporary take courtesy of Coogler. If you watched the previews, then you know both Donnie and Rocky have challenges they both have to overcome before the big fight night. The film makes sure to deliver plenty of emotional montages that got me all psyched up going into the last fight, and just like in Rocky Balboa they have quite a nice professional broadcast setup thanks to a partnership with HBO Sports. Like most Rocky films, expect a main event fight that goes the distance with a lot of highs and lows for both combatants in the ring complete with nasty gashes, cuts, buckets (literally!) of blood and stunning knockdowns. It is easily a championship fight worthy of the Rocky pedigree.

There are only a few extras on the BluRay. There are 20 minutes of deleted scenes. None are really all that must see, and I can see why they were cut as they mostly were there to help set up the backstory going into the first act of the film. There are two behind-the-scenes features that are both must see however. Becoming Adonis is about the intense year-long training Michael B. Jordan went to transform into Adonis Creed. Know the Past, Own the Future interviews most of the cast and crew about the history of Rocky and how Creed is essentially about passing the Rocky torch to a new generation.

The Rocky films are just as imperative to sports films as they were when the first one hit over 40 years ago. Creed excels in spades, and then some at continuing the Rocky legacy of the ultimate underdog story. My only nitpick is why Rocky’s son is only briefly mentioned in the film when I expected to see him at least make a cameo in the film’s final act and why the new characters introduced in the last film are not even officially recognized here. Minus that gripe, I am thumbs up all the way with Creed. I hope to see Michael B. Jordan carry the Creed torch for at least a couple more films for a new generation of movie-goers.

Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs

3
12 Angry Men (1957)
12 Rounds 3: Lockdown
21 Jump Street
Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie
Atari: Game Over
The Avengers: Age of Ultron
Batman: The Killing Joke
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice
Bounty Hunters
Cabin in the Woods
Captain America: The First Avenger
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special
The Condemned 2
Dirty Work
Faster
Field of Dreams
Fight Club
The Fighter
For Love of the Game
Good Will Hunting
Hercules: Reborn
Hitman
Ink
Man of Steel
Marine 3 & 4
Mortal Kombat
The Replacements
Rocky I-VI
Running Films Part 1
Running Films Part 2
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Source Code
Star Trek I-XII
Take Me Home Tonight
TMNT
The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2
Veronica Mars
The Wrestler (2008)
X-Men: Days of Future Past

Rocky Balboa

I held off on watching the last of the Rocky films, 2006’s Rocky Balboa (trailer), until the day before I ran my town’s annual half-marathon race. I needed that inspirational film to get my psyche in that right place, and you cannot go wrong with a Rocky film. The “Itallian Stallion” also needed some inspiration in 2006 as Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) returns to the ring all these years later to see if he still has something left “in the basement” for one last hurrah on his terms.

If you are new to the Rocky films and have been following along in these blogs with me, you will recall the last film took place in 1990, so I do not blame you for thinking how the hell can Balboa return all these years later and prove to be a legitimate threat. In the extra features interviews, Stallone provides some valid justifications for this plot after George Foreman’s comeback in 1994 to win the heavyweight title. Stallone returns to the director’s chair for this film and he is going for the serious sports drama feel like the first pair of Rocky films that I prefer against the over-the-top nature of the middle films.

A lot has changed for Rocky since 1990, foremost he is now widowed as his former wife Adrian passed away from breast cancer a few years earlier. The film does a great job at making it apparent that Balboa is still living in the past and has not moved on as Rocky takes Adrian’s brother, Paulie (Burt Young) on the annual tour where they revisit a lot of the couple’s old spots across Philly. To make matter worse, Rocky has grown distant from his son, Rocky Jr. (Milo Ventimiglia) since Adrian’s death as he has troubles trying to reconnect with him since Adrian passed.

Rocky finds a pick-me-up with a new friend he has not seen in quite some time that I alluded to in my entry for the first film. Remember 12-year old Little Marie that talked back to Rock and called him a creep-o? In 2006, Marie (Geraldine Hughes) is all grown up now and is a bartender at the old watering hole from the first film, the Lucky Seven Tavern. Rocky gets reacquainted with her and takes in Marie and her son Steps (James Kelly III) as his new family to get him through these hard times he is living through and gets them jobs at the Italian restaurant he owns, fittingly called “Adrian’s.”

While Rocky is getting his life together, the present boxing, champ, Mason “The Line” Dixon (Antonio Tarver) is getting ripped apart in the press for steamrolling through the competition and not having any marquee fights. ESPN stirs the pot by running a nice looking computer animated test of what would happen if Balboa and Dixon met in the ring. All the buzz the computer test generates motivates Rocky to make a comeback to the ring.

I absolutely love the casting for these new characters. Tarver, Hughes, Kelly and Ventimiglia are all perfect in their roles and they all blend in perfectly in the Rocky universe. I also will give props to Stallone on his cinematography for the film. He has a great running theme with a majority of the film taking place at night to capture the rough downtown feel of Philly, and he really brings it out with bright street lights really make the city come to life on film. May favorite highpoints in this film are a pair of fantastic scenes where Rocky pleads his case to the boxing commission to get his license back and a very heartfelt exchange with his son to win him over and get him back on his side, and features my favorite quotes of the film that emphatically concludes with “that’s how winning is done!”

Rocky Balboa hits all the right beats you want out of a Rocky film. Rocky gets really down on his luck and nobody believes in him. He eventually wins over the doubters, and has a legendary training montage that fittingly got me revved up for the final fight. We get a vintage Paulie freakout, and many classic quotes old and new throughout the film such as “fighter’s fight,” “ain’t over until it’s over,” and “let’s start building some hurting bombs!”

I will tip my cap to Stallone and MGM for going all out in the final fight sequence and teaming with HBO who were gracious to let them piggy back off them for using their HD cameras and ring attire to film the Balboa/Dixon clash to give it a very authentic telecast feel. The fight looks the best of all the films’ fights and the announcers they brought in make it seem like you are watching the real thing. Stallone trained hard for this film and does a fine job at proving he can still go at his age and be a believable threat to Dixon. The fight follows the classic Rocky formula of showing the first two rounds in their entirety, and then a montage of the middle rounds before finishing things off with an epic final round in its entirety and sure enough, I was on the edge of my seat totally invested in this fake fight by the time the bell sounded to kick off the final round. The film concludes in a very appropriate nod to the end of the first Rocky that felt like the right thing to do and I would not have wanted it any other way.

After going four films without any extra features in this BluRay collection of the films, it was good to see Rocky Balboa offer up a hearty amount of extras. Unfortunately they are all carried over from the film’s initial video release with no new extras. But what is here is still quite good. Stallone has a solo commentary full of insightful fact about the production, but he has plenty of noticeable lulls and I would have preferred him to team up with someone on the commentary for him to bounce off of and keep the dialogue flowing. There are 23 minutes of deleted and alternate scenes, and I recommend checking out most of them because there are a few pivotal scenes in here presented in a completely different way. I like the scenes the film went with in the final cut, but these are definitely worth checking out on what could have been.

Skill vs. Will is a 17 minute making of feature on the film that dissects the casting of the new characters and what it took to get a new Rocky film green-lit all these years later that I recommend watching. Definitely check out Reality in the Ring, a 15 minute take on how Stallone and MGM teamed with HBO to film the final fight and how Dixon and Stallone did not pull any punches and were told multiple times to ease up in the ring. The extras finish off with a quick five minute piece on the tech used to make the CG animated fight.

Rocky Balboa is a great final chapter to Balboa’s in-ring career. It helps erase that questionable street fight scene of Rocky V being your last memory of a Balboa fight and gave the good story of Rocky going out on his own terms. By the end of the film, Balboa proved that by getting through this fight that he was able to move on with his life. Along with the first two Rocky films, this is up there with being my favorite, and ask me any day of the week which one is my favorite and I will randomly tell you one of those three are.

So that wraps up my entries for the six films covered in the Rocky Undisputed Collection. We are not all the finished however. As you are likely aware there is a seventh film in the Rocky franchise coming out this fall titled Creed (trailer). It keeps up the trend of at least one Rocky film coming out a decade since the 1970s. No, Balboa is not stepping into the ring again, as now he is stepping into the role of mentor/trainer for who else, but Apollo Creed’s son. Needless to say, the trailer has got me jacked and I am really anticipating this film. Rest assured I will pick up the home video release and make sure the film gets its just due here. So thank you again for reliving all the Rocky films with me, and please join me here in several months for my coverage of Creed.
Past Rocky Blogs

Rocky V
Rocky IV
Rocky III
Rocky II
Rocky

Rocky V

Now it is time to cover what many consider the darkest chapter of the Rocky films, and that is 1990’s Rocky V (trailer). It seems no matter who I talk to they consider this the only bad installment of the six Rocky movies. That is saying something because Stallone passed on directing this one after directing the last three films himself as Rocky V reunites Stallone with the man who won a Best Director Academy Award for the first film, John G. Avildsen. So join me while I try and figure out what made everyone despise this film so much.

Even though it was released five years after the previous film, it picks up immediately after Rocky IV. The film opens like the last three films with a highlight reel of the final fight of the previous film, which was an intense 15 round slugfest between Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) and Ivan Drago (Dolph Lungdren). Rocky V then cuts to the locker room right after the fight where Adrian (Talia Shire) is consoling Rocky, who is having complications after all the fierce blows he absorbed from Drago. Doctors tell Balboa he has suffered permanent brain damage from the fight and as a result the athletic commission must force Rocky to retire. To make matters worse, longtime friend/goofball Paulie (Burt Young) was conned by the family accountant into signing away all of the Balboa’s money and now the Balboa’s are broke and must move to a modest home back in the old Philadelphia neighborhood where Rocky started off in the first film.

While trying to get his bearings as a trainer at Mick’s old gym, Rocky is confronted by one Tommy Gunn (Tommy Morrison). Tommy just turned pro and is hell bent on proving himself to Rocky to take him under his wing as his manager. Rocky does just that, and instantly forms a father/son bond with Tommy to the dismay of Rocky Jr., who is played by Sly’s own son, the late Sage Stallone. The antagonist for this film is evil promoter George Washington Duke (Richard Gant), who the film does not make any effort to hide is their version of Don King, a fast talking, wise cracking promoter who will resort to anything to put on a big fight, and who Rocky classifies as the dark side of the boxing business.

While Rocky V gets a lot of flak, I will give some props to Avildsen and Stallone for making it a serious sports drama again, and dialing back the off-the-rails campy nature of Rocky III and IV. It was nice to see MGM shooting for a return to form and try to tell a serious story again. I loved that Rocky and Adrian started wearing their vintage attire from the 70s again, and that the couple embraced their Philadelphia roots and that Rocky stopped wearing the corporate suits and amped up that lovable Italian accent again that he mastered in the first two films.

Now for why this film earns the reputation it has. I have a question, since Rocky V takes place immediately after the last film, how did Rocky Jr. magically double his age into a 13 year old? When we last saw Jr. in IV, he looked around 7. Obvious timeline flaw aside, I did not care too much for Jr.’s side story throughout the film with him standing up to bullies at school. I guess the film needed to give him something to do, but they already had a good plot going for him with losing affection for his dad when Rock Sr. turns all his attention to Tommy.

I do not have a problem with Tommy Morrison’s portrayal of Tommy Gunn, who perfectly nails the role of the hungry up-and-coming prospect. I do not mind that the film gets a little too predictable, and that you see Tommy turning on Rocky coming from a mile away as his early success with Rocky goes to his head as he joins forces with Duke so he can get a world title fight. I do not like how the film has the press absolutely trash Tommy in the press conference right after his world title victory proclaiming him as a paper champion right after he wins the title. This causes Tommy to flip out and Duke convinces Tommy to challenge Rocky to a match to prove himself to all the doubters.

I guess this maniacal villain turn for Tommy seemed too sudden for me, and that maybe he needed more time as a champion in the movie getting a track record defending against unproven contenders and then have the press dump on him instead of immediately after the biggest victory in his career. This leads to the final big fight scene for the film, problem is you cannot have a big time, in-ring fight since Rocky’s health forced him into retirement and he promised a pleading Adrian he would not put on the gloves again. So the film compromises by having Tommy call Rocky out at a local tavern. Tommy’s fight proposal gets turned down and Tommy gets too hot headed and punches out Paulie which leads to Rocky and Tommy instantly having a big ‘ol parking lot brawl to close out the film.

What Stallone and Avildsen did made sense by trying to deliver a big time fight within the proper storyline parameters that Balboa is capable of as I described in the preceding paragraph. They tried to go as all out as they can with a pretty lengthy back and forth brawl in the parking lot to give the feeling of an epic final showdown. It was a fine fight scene, but the problem is that it just does not compensate for the traditional main event, in-ring fight that happened at the end of the previous four films. That was always what the previous films built up to, and that was settling the score in the ring with all the glitz and glamour of a big time TV fight. I will again give MGM credit for them trying to make it work, and I think on paper the plot sounded like a good compromise, but in execution it felt like a cheapened replacement effort that ultimately did not sit well with me. I can only imagine how audiences in the theater must have felt when they realized they were not getting the traditional, final in-ring encounter.

I would have loved to have seen a behind-the-scenes feature or a commentary with Stallone and Avildsen trying to explain what did and did not work for them and how they handled the public reaction to this film. Unfortunately, like the previous three films, the BluRay edition of Rocky V in the Rocky Heavyweight Collection box set does not have any extra features whatsoever. While I would not go so far to say it is unwatchable, Rocky V definitely ranks at the bottom of the six films for me. There are still a lot of good aspects to this film, and I appreciate the core story it told and how it was a return to form as a serious sports drama for the franchise. It is just too bad the film loses itself in the final act.

Past Rocky Blogs

Rocky IV
Rocky III
Rocky II
Rocky

Rocky IV

As mentioned in my review of Rocky III, that film marked the franchise going in a more campy direction. 1985’s Rocky IV (trailer) embraces the campiness full scale as the theme for this film is essentially Rocky vs. the Soviet Union. Like Rocky III, yesterday marked my first time watching Rocky IV since 2004 and I went into it with fond memories of Balboa crushing communism and equal love/disgust for Paulie’s robot. I also watched this with bonus audio commentary from Dan Ryckert and Drew Scanlon of giantbomb.com, and it only made the film more delightful to take in as Dan’s natural fandom and love for the Rocky series is ever present in his commentary and you can tell it definitely rubs off a little bit on Drew by the end of the movie who is watching Rocky IV for the first time.

Like the previous films, Rocky IV opens with the final moments of the closing fight of the previous film, which was Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) beating Clubber Lang (Mr. T) to regain his world championship. We then fast forward to modern day where Rocky is enjoying his success at home again with him, his son Rocky Jr. and wife Adrian (Talia Shire) throwing a birthday party for Adrian’s brother Paulie (Burt Young). I was happy to see Burt Young slim up for Rocky II and how they really reformed his character, but by Rocky IV he regressed back to being the burly, outspoken drunken Paulie we all know and love. They give Paulie a robot for his birthday, and the robot is so dumb and out of place for this film that I cannot help but be happy that this talking robot is the perfect match for the silly nature of Paulie.

Within minutes of Rocky IV I could not help but accept how off-the-rails the movies have become. Rocky’s former rival and new best friend, Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) embraces the silliness too as he is so outraged at Soviet Union amateur boxing champion Ivan Drago (Dolph Lungdren) announcing himself entering United States boxing competition that he accepts his invitation for a boxing exhibition to prove himself to the American audience. Rocky and Adrian try to warn Apollo not to do the fight as he has been retired for five years and they think he does not have what it takes to compete with a hungry monster like Drago.
Creed’s powers of smooth-talking puts their reservations to rest, and Creed shows up to the exhibition fight with the most flamboyant entrance in boxing history. This entrance puts his patriotic All-American entrances from the first two films to shame as he comes out busting a groove in vintage Apollo-form with countless backup dancers and James Brown singing “Living in America” in almost its entirety. I could not help but love how ridiculous it was and how fitting it is for Apollo, and if half the film’s budget went to the Super Bowl halftime show-like spectacle that was Apollo’s entrance than it was definitely worth it.

It is too bad the entrance did nothing for Creed’s performance in the ring as Drago shows no mercy in this fight as he literally beats Apollo Creed TO DEATH! A devastated Balboa swears vengeance for his fallen BFF and since Drago is essentially blackballed from America for killing one of its heroes, Rocky must now travel to the Soviet Union on Drago’s home turf on Christmas day no less to avenge Apollo’s death while also vanquishing Communism and fighting for the All-American way. It is from here the film goes into fifth gear montage overdrive as we get nearly a half hour of a series of montages starting off with a franchise first sad montage of Rocky going into self doubt and reflecting on his past memories of Apollo, and then a montage of him arriving in the Soviet Union. We save the best montage for last however as we are treated to the quintessential Rocky training montage set to the awesome 80s power ballad, “Hearts on Fire” that shows Drago working out to the latest hi-tech gym gadgetry while Balboa says “screw the gym, I am going to run up mountains, chop wood, drag sleds through the snow and run up a mountain!” It is by far, the manliest training montage in all of cinema history and just writing this sentence and reliving it now makes me want to go do a run in the woods and chop down some trees!

When it comes to the big final fight in the Soviet Union, Drago gets a hero’s entrance set to the Soviet Union national anthem, while Rocky comes out to a chorus of boos from an audience that wants to see him go down in flames. The fight itself is a thing of beauty, as both Drago and Rocky go the distance treating us to a 15-round epic shot in the same way as the first two Rocky films where we see the first two rounds in their entirety, and then a montage of rounds 3-14 that sets the stage for the final, 15th round where everything comes to a boil. I made sure to keep track, and Balboa gets knocked down a whopping six times by the ferocious Drago, but of course Rocky keeps getting up!

The final fight tells a great story that through Balboa’s natural fighting spirit and never-give-up attitude that he wins over the crowd by the final round and turns them in his favor. After the fight he gives a fantastic interview where he delivers the classic closing line, “Everyone can change” to the audience’s approval, and even the Soviet Union officials watching from the balcony cannot resist but give Rocky a standing ovation. Yes, by the film’s end Rocky singlehandedly crushes Communism and ends the Cold War…at least that is how I perceived it.

A part of me wishes I was my age now when Rocky IV hit theaters as I recall hearing various stories over the years on how Rocky IV got actual standing ovations when the credits hit. I believe it too, because in 1985 we were still five years away from the end of the Cold War, and Rocky IV was the perfect answer to help us fantasize the end of it. I have a special place on the side for Rocky IV in the echelon of the Rocky films. I love Rocky I, II and Rocky Balboa as serious, prestige sports films, but because Rocky IV is so ridiculous and campy with Rocky crushing Communism and avenging his friend’s in-ring death, and the awesome final fight sequence all combines for one of the all-time greatest feel-good sports movies.

Past Rocky Blogs

Rocky III
Rocky II
Rocky

Rocky III

Since I missed out on May with a blog from the Rocky franchise, today I will attempt to make up for it with a two-for-one special covering 1982’s Rocky III and 1985’s Rocky IV. While on the topic of boxing, I want to mention how I watched the big Mayweather/Pacquiao fight on PPV last month at the town’s local Buffalo Wild Wings with a friend, and got really into the fight. I read a few reports online afterwards that were disappointed that it was not a over-the-top slugfest, but I somehow got really into the defensive clinic Mayweather put on and got lost in the ‘sweet science’ of it all. A couple weeks later, I then went with the same friend to a local boxing card put on in town where he had a family member winning in the main event. I had a great time at my first ever all-boxing live event, so combine that with attempting to watch all the Rocky films this year and I can safely say this has been the biggest year for boxing for me yet.

Before watching the Rocky movies again this year on the recent BluRay collection I acquired, I only watched the first five Rocky films once each after a marathon session of one a week when I bought them in a DVD set back in 2004. So this marks my first time watching Rocky III (trailer) since. My memories of it were that aside from the awesome fight scenes, it was a bit too campy and that it tried to do too much in too little time resulting in one of the weaker films of the series. For the most part, Rocky III is a shift in tone as it no longer is going for the dramatic prestige tone that the two films before it did. It opens with the closing moments of Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) finally beating Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) to win the world title at the end of Rocky II.

After the intro there is what else, but a montage of Rocky going on a successful stretch of 10 title defenses. During this montage we witness Balboa transform from the loveable everyman underdog into a corporate champion doing charity work, birthday parties and countless commercials and endorsements. It was like when Steve Austin almost accepted Vince McMahon’s evil offer of selling out to become a corporate champion right after he won his first world title back in 1998. Stallone directed both of the films I am covering today, and I think he was a little too successful in making me hate the Rocky character during this montage. You know what grinds my gears…wait for it…corporate sell outs with holier than though commercials, like the pretentious ‘Michael Vick Experience’ ad from when Vick was lighting up the Falcons in the early 2000s and awful memories of nearly everyone abusing his overpowered scrambling ability in online Madden games. Vick was doing all kinds of awful commercials like this taking in every easy endorsement, it was almost like all this money shoved in his face was a precursor that would lead him down a dark path to….oh yeah.

The Michael Vick analogy somewhat relates to Rocky as we witness Balboa transform into this not-so-loveable character anymore doing all these endorsements, while during the same montage we are introduced to Clubber Lang (Mr. T) who shared my disgust of Balboa selling out and being fed easy contenders. Yes, Rocky III was the breakout film for Mr. T that lead to him launching the successful A-Team TV series and doing countless commercials afterwards for many years to come. Lang vents his frustrations to move his way up the ranks to #1 contender status and challenges Rocky to a fight at a special ceremony unveiling the legendary Rocky Balboa statue in Philadelphia that is still standing today. Rocky’s trainer Mickey (Burgess Meredith) warns Balboa he has been handpicking him easy fights and that Lang is a killer not to be messed with, but Rocky does not take his warning seriously as we witness him in a so-cheesy-bad-it’s awesome AWFUL TRAINING MONTAGE! Rocky III is filled with so many montages I could not find this one to link to, but I swear it is hilarious watching Balboa mug for the camera for pictures and take kisses from adoring fans during his training while Lang is tearing up a dark, gritty gym. It is legendary material!

We get to the Lang/Balboa fight midway through the film, and during the prefight entrance Lang gets in Rocky’s face and shoves Mick which causes Mick to get a heart attack and die!!! Balboa goes into the fight mentally distraught and loses the title to Lang in a brutal beat down that was over in two rounds. We were warned earlier in the film that Mick had heart problems after getting woozy during a big kerfluffle at a Rocky vs. Thunderlips (Hulk Hogan) boxer vs. wrestler charity fight. Yes, this film also brought nationwide attention to the Hulkster and was the launchpad for Hulkamania taking off a year later in the then-WWF. Did I mention all this has happened in just the first half of a film that is only just over an hour and a half long!?!?

The last half of the film has Apollo Creed catching up with Balboa in mourning back at Mick’s old gym. Carl Weathers is once again masterful as the smooth-talking Apollo Creed as he convinces Balboa to be his trainer and get him ready for a rematch with Lang! Apollo convinces Rocky that he needs to recapture that fighter’s “eye of the tiger” which also happens to be the new hit single on the soundtrack that is essentially the theme song for this film, and now associated as one of THE top songs of many runner playlists. From here we get out of the awful, corporate sellout atmosphere to a much more appreciate back-to-basics tone when Balboa trains with Creed at his first gym. The training starts off poorly for Rocky, but a good-natured and well delivered speech from Rock’s wife Adrian (Talia Shire) is all the impetus Balboa needs to get ‘the eye’ for an awesome training montage with Rock and Apollo busting out all kinds of sports gear for then-newcomer sportswear company Nike.

Rock goes into the film’s final act now slimmer, wiser and better prepared for Lang. Unlike the final fight in the previous two films, this is not a 15 round epic, but instead a fast and intense three rounds we see play it out in its entirety complete with over-the-top sound effects for all the punches that sounded like the fighters were unleashing gunfire out of a Stallone Rambo movie instead of taking actual sounding boxing punches, but it makes the final fight all the more epic for it. I love the film’s final showdown, as both Rocky and Lang are intense and deliver an awesome over-the-top slugfest that we want out of all boxing fights in real life, but we will have to make peace with them primarily existing on the silver screen instead. Once I got wise to Rocky’s strategy I was back on board the Balboa bandwagon and wanted him to knock Lang’s lights out.

After Balboa emerges (SPOILER!) victorious in the rematch, the film has an unforgettable closing scene where Apollo wants a favor from Rocky for tacking him under his tutelage. Creed gets that favor in a one-on-one closed gym fighting session with Balboa that Apollo kicks off with his metaphorical bell ringing proclamation, “DING-DING” that has lived on in infamy and quoted many times over ever since. I went into Rocky III kind of dreading it, and while the film takes the franchise in a campier direction than I wanted with a few cringe-worthy moments of Balboa living the high life that is a bit of a pain to sit through, it all makes sense in the form of Rocky regaining his fighting spirit and vanquishing Lang in the end and making a new best friend in former rival Apollo Creed.

After watching this again 11 years later I realize I took for granted all the great things Rocky IIIintroduced the world to. For better or worse, it made Hulk Hogan and Mr. T into superstars, it gave athletes one of the best motivational songs to work out to with “Eye of the Tiger,” it helped give a then-up-and-coming Nike major nationwide attention and Rocky III is responsible for one of the best closing lines in cinema history! I think I still rank this film behind I, II, IV and Rocky Balboa in my rankings, but now it is just a notch or two under them where before I thought of it as more of a mediocre entry.

I was going to combine my review for Rocky IV here, but I went far longer than I anticipated with this review that I am going to have to dedicate a new blog to Rocky IV. Long time readers know I love indulging in behind-the-scenes extra features, but thank goodness in this case there are none on the BluRay or else this review would be even longer for you to endure.

Past Rocky Blogs

Rocky II
Rocky

Rocky II

It has been a crazy past couple of weeks so thus explains the lack of blogs past couple of weeks, and I may not achieve my quota by the end of the month. Regardless, I am back with my take on the sequel to the Oscar winner for Best Picture of 1976 with my take on 1979’s Rocky II (trailer).

This is my second viewing of Rocky II and I forgot how much transpired in the first half hour. The film kicks off with the riveting final rounds of the Balboa(Sylvester Stallone)/Creed(Carl Weathers) fight from the first film, and the sequel picks up immediately where the original left off with an ambulance taking both fighters to the hospital for recovery. Shortly after Rocky gets out of the hospital he proposes to Adrian (Talia Shire) and not too long after that they discover they are having a baby.

Rocky goes on a bit of a spending spree with his take of the gate of the big fight and splurges on fancy new clothes (though I was never a fan of the tiger emblazoned jacket in this film), car, house, the works. Eventually this catches up to Balboa and after he discovers he cannot act worth a lick in his endeavor in commercials. Rocky tries settling on a manual labor job, but shortly after getting laid off from that winds up at the bottom of the ladder cleaning up the gym for his old trainer, Mick (Burgess Meredith). To help make ends meet, Adrian goes back to work at the pet shop, and Rocky sells his car to a much slimmer Paulie (Burt Young). All of the last two paragraphs take place in the first half hour. It certainly did not feel that long, but it all just breezed by before I knew it.

Meanwhile, Apollo is furious at fan backlash in his disappointing split-decision win against an unknown underdog. He winds up going on a national PR tour calling Rocky out for a rematch so he can put him away for good in a couple rounds to show the first fight was a fluke. Finally, Balboa agrees to the fight and the two announce it in a hilarious press conference where Rocky shines with his dry humor. A lot of training takes place next with the illustrious chicken chase training to build Rocky’s speed, and eventually culminating in another epic montage set to another classic score from Bill Conti. The training montage is so incredibly cheesy this time around you cannot help but love it as Rocky runs up the stairs again, but this time with a swarm of little kids, along with children singing the chorus of the Rocky theme.

Rocky II ups its production values significantly from the first when it comes to the big fight at the end. It takes place at the historic Philadelphia Spectrum in Balboa’s hometown, and this time there is no fancy camera work to hide a small smattering of extras as they managed to pack it to the brim here. Like the last film, we have an incredible first couple of rounds to up the intensity, before getting a montage of rounds 3-14, before finally giving us the final round in its entirety with the climatic double collapse finish. This fight was super fun to watch, and definitely benefited from more camera angles and better lighting that the added production values helped procure, and even with the dramatic final moments of the fight that had me at the edge of my seat, I still oh so slightly prefer the first Creed/Balboa fight from the first film.

The same can be said overall to how I prefer the first Rocky over the sequel. Both are presented as serious sports films that both deliver big, but Rocky II ultimately is just a notch below the first. The movie pops out a little bit more on BluRay, but is not a must own in HD by any means, and unlike the first Rocky, this one has zero extra features whatsoever. This still is a fantastic film, and the first two along with Rocky Balboa, are my three top films of the franchise.

Past Rocky Blogs

Rocky

Rocky

About a little over a decade ago around 2003 I bought a DVD box set of the first five Rocky films and proceeded to watch a film a week over the next month. It was the first time I watched all the classic boxing films featuring Philadelphia's favorite son. Minus bits and pieces of the third and fifth films, I pretty much enjoyed them all. The DVD box set I had of them however took up way too much shelf space than I desired. Last year I was perusing Wal-Mart's video aisles and was surprised they had all six Rocky movies in one nice BluRay set for only $30, and the size of the packaging was of just one standard DVD case.

I have been meaning to relive all six Rocky films again since the upcoming seventh installment, titled Creed, is hitting late this year and features Rocky as the trainer for Apollo Creed's son. The whole series are terrific underdog sports films, with the first two and the sixth films standing out as legitimate prestige pictures. Ask me any day of the week and my mind would constantly change with those three being which is the best Rocky film. For better or worse, the series goes a little bit off the rails with the third, fourth and fifth films, but even those are entertaining rides in their own unique way. Additionally, I want to try and crank out all six films in two months by the time I run my second ever full marathon to keep motivating me with all of Rocky's infamous training montages by my side.

With that intro out of the way, let us get on to the debut film of the series, 1976's Rocky (trailer). I jotted down a bunch of notes as I relived this, so I am just going to try and mix things up a bit differently here by trying to rapid fire hit all these bullet points on why I loved this film so much. Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) starts off the film barely scraping by in his journeyman boxing career in preliminary bouts at a local church in Philadelphia. To make money on the side he is a money collector for a loan shark by the name of Gazzo (Joe Spinell). I completely forgot that Rocky chain smoked for the first film until he got serious in his training!

It is almost impossible to not fall in love with the Rocky character right off the bat. Stallone nails all idiosyncrasies of the character from his heavy New England accent, to having a certain little swagger with the way he walks bouncing a handball that combines to make him irresistibly endearing. The same bar Rocky revisits in Rocky Balboa, Lucky Seven Tavern, is in here as is a scene featuring a then 12-year old girl by the name of Marie who goes on to be one of the main supporting actors in Rocky Balboa 30 years later.

Rocky's true love is for Adrian (Talia Shire), who works at the local pet shop he keeps frequenting in order to win her over. Adrian is the sister to Rocky's friend Paulie (Burt Young) who has a very hot and cold relationship with Rocky and Adrian throughout the film, and I cannot help but get a chuckle now whenever he erupts in one of his vintage tirades. Watching Rocky and Adrian's relationship grow throughout the film is an entertaining journey, where Rocky attempts to woo her by taking her on an ice skating date, and helps her overcome her shyness and by standing up for herself against Paulie in another powerful scene.

While Rocky is getting his love life in check, the boxing champion of the world, Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) is scrambling to find a last minute replacement for his big fight on the country's bicentennial celebration. The top contender had to bow out with injury, and the rest of the ranked contenders are also unavailable so Creed decides to promote the fight with the novelty of America being the land of opportunity by fighting against a hometown underdog. Carl Weathers is fantastic as the smooth talking Apollo Creed, as the film essentially plays him up as their own version of Muhummad Ali. The way he pitched the last second underdog fight replacement sounds ridiculous on paper, but the way Weathers makes the Apollo character deliver it makes it sound like a grand idea to everyone in the room. Naturally, that underdog winds up being Rocky Balboa.

With the assistance of his trainer Mickey (Burgess Meredith) and several awe-inspiring training montages, Rocky Balboa gets in the best shape of his life to take on Apollo Creed. Bill Conti's legendary original score makes the training montages and the big fight stand out exponentially more. The build up to the final fight is surreal as both fighters go through their pre-fight rituals I could not help but get my emotions all riled up again all these years later knowing that these two are about to tear up the ring in an epic encounter. All things considered with this being a low budget film from 1976, the camera work and cinematography of the fight still holds up fairly well nearly 40 years later. I am not even going to link to the awesome final fight scene, you will just have to watch the film to experience it for yourselves. Ultimately, Balboa accomplishes his dream of going the full 15 rounds with Apollo and going punch-for-punch with him in a close fight that went to the scorecards and had a very climatic final couple of rounds to take in. As the judges' final scores were announced, Rocky and Adrian shared a final embrace in the ring to close out a film that already had my spirits running high throughout its last act.

The original Rocky DVD I owned had a decent amount of extra features for its 25th anniversary release, but if memory serves right it seemed MGM was releasing a new special edition of this film every couple of years, and this BluRay appears to collect all the extra features from them, and probably tacks on a couple of new extras of its own. There are three commentaries on here, and I bounced around all three throughout the film. The first is just Stallone by his lonesome, and he has lots of nonstop production facts, but he seems a little too laid back especially during the film's more powerful moments. The second commentary is with boxing legends Lou Duva and Bert Sugar and these two were a riot to listen to as they get really into certain parts of the film and relate it to their past exploits in the sport, and also go on some random, but amusing tangents. The last commentary is with seven cast and crew members, but each person is individually spliced away from previously recorded interviews and inserted during the scenes they are talking about. It is a little awkward to listen to initially, but has a nice way of providing nonstop, uninterrupted commentary throughout. Many thanks to MGM for providing separate captions for the commentary tracks as well as the rest of the extra features.

The primary behind-the-scenes extra feature is a three part documentary that lasts 76 minutes titled, In the Ring, that interviews all the major cast and crew members. It covers the origins of the Rocky script, how each major cast member landed their role and dissects the production of the pivotal scenes from the film. It is a good history lesson of the movie, and if you only had time to check out one extra feature, In the Ring is the perfect place to start. There are about a dozen other behind-the-scenes features on here that average around ten minutes in length, and most of them are worth going out of your way to see, but if I were to recommend only three I would suggest checking out Opponents, which profiles and interviews all the Balboa antagonists (save Mr. T, he ain't got time for no jibba-jabba) throughout the first five films. Steadicam: Then and Now is a look into the then breakthrough steadicam technology and how Rocky capitalized on it being the second film to make use of it. Finally, Staccato: Composer's Notebook with Bill Conti is an in depth interview with Bill Conti on how he came up with all his unforgettable tracks for the film's score. There are still plenty more extras I can go on forever about, and I took notes on every single extra feature on the Rocky disc alone, and minus the commentaries, there are a whopping four hours of extra behind-the-scenes features to indulge.

Rocky is a historic movie you owe yourself to watch if you have not already. There is a reason it is one of the few sports movies to be nominated, let alone win the Oscar for Best Picture. It was the catalyst for all the other underdog sports movies after it, but it is still one of the best with many great feel-good and powerful moments throughout. I cannot help but love its message that you can do anything as long as you put your mind to it. These are the reasons why I have the film's poster on my wall. For Rocky fanatics, you will love that this looks as good as it can possibly be in HD, and you will get a lot out of the four hours of extra features included. Please join me again in a couple weeks as I dive into the next film.