News-Letter

In 1976 Rocky won three Academy Awards, including Best
Picture, and captured the adoration of America. Rocky Balboa, the
underdog of the boxing world who rose to become a heavyweight champion
through sheer good old fashioned ambition, was and still is an icon.

Ask anyone on the street about Rocky and they will probably do
one of three things: sing the theme song and shadow box, scream
"Adriaaaaaaan," or mimic the boxer's triumphant run up the steps of the
Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Since the original movie was released, there have been four
sequels and this December we are graced with the fifth and hopefully
final installment of the Rocky franchise, Rocky Balboa.

Rocky Balboa opens on a dreary Philly evening, the
anniversary of the death of Rocky's beloved wife, Adrian Pennino. The
specifics of her death are ambiguous but one thing is for sure: This
makes Rocky sad. And he stays that way for the first hour-and-a-half.
Essentially the thought process behind the film must have sounded
something like this: "What do we do with the movie until the fight?"

Their answer was to have Rocky relive moments from past Rocky
movies (read here: his life) scene by scene. The movie follows the aged
boxer around his hometown, to his old haunts, where he recounts every
detail of his memories with Adrian. These scenes are complete with
black-and-white flashbacks to the scenes from Rocky that he is describing.

This becomes particularly annoying to people who are familiar
with the original movie and don't need to be retold, and then re-shown,
every cloying moment. Balboa drags Adrian's brother Paulie (Burt Young)
around with him to their favorite places and it is Paulie who quickly
tires of the ritual. He urges Rocky to do something more with his life
than pine for Adrian and the glory days. This is where we see the first
inkling of a comeback.

The audience is merely tempted with this quiet promise of
action because they are then forced to sit through more reminiscing, a
weak love story -- who wants to see a 60-year-old Sylvester Stallone
get his mack on with a younger woman? -- and a sad attempt to reconnect
with his banker-type son (who obviously inherited the brains that
skipped Rocky). Then, finally, we are relieved from the agonizing
flashbacks when an ESPN-like station airs a simulated fight between
Rocky Balboa, in his prime, and the current heavyweight knock-out champ
Mason "The Line" Dixon. Virtual Rocky wins the fight and spurs a
nation-wide controversy over the results. Influenced by Paulie's
encouragement and the simulated fight's outcome, Rocky applies for a
professional boxing license so he can fight again. Though no boxing
official in their right mind would hand over a license to a 60-year-old
wash-up (look at the effect boxing had on Muhammad Ali, and he retired
at 39) Stallone delivers an almost incomprehensible speech to the
athletics panel and thus, the melancholy Rocky shows some of the
heavyweight spirit he's famous for.

Mason Dixon (played by Antonio Tarver, an actual boxing
champion) gets wind of Rocky's decision to box again and Dixon's
managers offer an exhibition match between the legend himself, Rocky
Balboa, and the young champion, Mason Dixon. Rocky accepts and this is
the point where the movie should have started.

Two-thirds of the movie is spent trying to bring the audience
close to the character so they will root for him. But what the
filmmakers failed to take into account was that anyone who is going to
see the sixth installation of a Rocky movie already knows the character
and is already rooting for him. The exposition in the beginning is
drawn-out and unnecessary.

However, the last 10 minutes of the movie, during the fight,
have to be some of the most exhilarating moments in cinematic history.
In the first round, Rocky looks like a joke, a goner, as he can barely
land a punch on Mason Dixon.

Just as we are about to lose faith in the Italian Stallion, he
answers back with an aggressive spurt of body blows, severely slowing
Dixon's game. With the audience watching breathlessly, Rocky is knocked
to the mat time and time again, only to pick his bloodied body back up
and soldier on. I'm not going to give away the ending, but just like
Rocky it's soft "on the inside."

Article Tools