Demolition Man (1993)

Director: Marco Brambilla

Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Wesley Snipes, Sandra Bullock, Nigel Hawthorne

Have I Seen it Before: Lives with that long line of R-rated actioners that were waiting for me when I turned 17 and not even the MPAA could stop me. It might live a little interchangeably in my head with Judge Dread (1995). Yet another reason to view Rob Schneider (uncredited but positively pockmarking the film) with suspicion.

Did I Like It: You, know I’m almost willing to say that I do. It is at or near the top of Stallone films in the 1990s. even though that isn’t exactly the decade he shined most brightly. It’s made with a brisk pace, and while it’s humor might be confused for being just on the wrong side of winking, but it’s all in service of its fundamental concept, introducing admittedly stock action movie characters into a classic sci-fi dystopian utopia.

And yet, I’ve got some issues, too. Had the film been set centuries ahead of the 1990s-set prologue, instead of decades, they would have been able to sell the whole thing a lot better, and all they would lose for the tweak is a small moment between Stallone and the one cop (Bill Cobbs) who had been around in Spartan’s time as a rookie, but now is an old man. I might be willing to cede that this becomes all the more glaring as I am writing this just a stone’s throw from the future the film depicts, but am I supposed to believe human society changed that much in the span of thirty years? The pop culture of the 1990s has all but disappeared? Language has changed that much? Sex* and going to the bathroom have changed so much that there’s barely even the language to be aware of the differences?

Not quite.

*Which Spartan seems all too eager to jump into just hours after realizing his wife is dead.

Rocky Balboa (2006)

Director: Sylvester Stallone

Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Burt Young, Antonio Tarver, Milo Ventimiglia

Have I Seen It Before: Oh, sure. The thought that Stallone had one more good Rocky film in him was too tantalizing to pass up. Something about the film stuck with me after it was first released, and I might have been tempted to put it as the second-best film in the original, just ever-so-slightly chasing after the heels of the original Rocky (1976).

Did I Like It: And he did! While it’s at best a fraction of the movie that Creed (2015) eventually became, that’s only because Ryan Coogler is one of the greatest filmmakers to come to prominence in the last twenty years, whereas Stallone is an—often underrated—journeyman behind the camera.

Gone are the increasingly thin justifications to put Balboa back in the ring that increasingly dogged the previous three sequels, and the on-spec silly idea of an over-60 Balboa climbing into the ring one final, final time almost makes sense. It also helps—or at least improves things in comparison with Rocky V (1990)—that while Antonio Tarver isn’t the greatest actor who ever lived, he’s a more engaging screen presence than poor Tommy Morrison could ever hope to be.

Everything this improved here. If there’s a movie that can make me forget, if only for a moment, that I find Stallone on average to be a bit irritating, that’s an automatic recommendation. Had the out-of-focus image of Balboa waving to Adrian’s (Talia Shire; she might not have gotten a paycheck, but she sure as hell is all over the film), that might have been fine. Stallone had managed to get back to basics, not just in featuring a movie that doesn’t resort to comic-book contrivances*, but in making us feel for the underdog again. We may not be able to punch like the Stallion, but we’ve all got steps we’ve got to climb when conventional wisdom says we cannot or should not.

I may not care for Stallone very much, but I have a tremendous amount of affection for Rocky Balboa, and Rocky Balboa. I mean, it paved the way for Creed, so there’s at least something there.

*I’m not saying I’m not a fan of comic-book contrivances. I’m only saying that they feel more at home with Rambo, not Rocky.

Rocky V (1990)

Director: John G. Avildsen

Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Talia Shire, Burt Young, Sage Stallone

Have I Seen it Before: I’ve seen it less than all of the other Rocky films. That much I’m damn sure of.

Did I Like It: Does anyone? Even Stallone, and he wrote it?

There’s any number of things one might fixate on to reckon with the film, and while I’m tempted, I’ll avoid dwelling on Stallone recently calling a certain someone the second George Washington. That whole bit had put me off re-watching any of the Rocky films as of late, before I remembered that the lion’s share of the rights had been wrested from Stallone’s hands, an watching the series is not an act of support for House Stallone.

In re-watching the series, I’m struck again by how likable Balboa is. Never one to take a cheap shot, I have a hard time imagining he would hardly make such brain-dead comparisons. But, as all series re-watches must, one must hit the nadir. And so, in this uniformly accepted worst of the franchise, Rocky becomes a gibbering fool.

That’s the first problem. The second problem is nothing happens in this film. The Balboas lose all of their money, move back into the old neighborhood, meet a guy from Oklahoma* (Tommy Morrison, who makes other athletes turned actors seem like Brando in comparison), before Rocky gets into a brawl with that same Okie.

That’s it. That’s the whole movie. I’ve now saved you the trouble. You’re welcome. This is certainly a series that struggled with coming up for any kind of rationale for further entries, but this is the only film in the series that seems to exist for the sole reason than United Artists decided it had been a while since anyone made a Rocky film, and it was already way too late to get particularly bothered as to whether or not the story made any sense, especially since communism was once brought into the scenario.

No, I don’t really want to take on those subjects. The thing that really sticks in my mind is not any of the above mention plots, or lacktherof. It’s that apparently Rocky and Adrian (Shire; between this and The Godfather - Part III (1990), she wasn’t having the best winter possible) spent five Christmases in a row in Russia, thereby allowing Rocky Jr. (Sage Stallone, not nearly as bad as one would assume) to become the main source of a hopeful future for the family.

Brain damage, indeed. Oh, well. They can’t all be winners. At least I now get to re-watch Rocky Balboa (2006) again now.

*Thanks for that, Sly.

Rocky vs Drago (2021)

Director: Sylvester Stallone

Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Talia Shire, Carl Weathers, Dolph Lundgren

Have I Seen it Before: Huh. Well, that’s the real question, isn’t it? I’ve never seen this movie like this. I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to watch it, either.

Did I Like It: I mentioned a couple of things in my review of the theatrical cut of Rocky IV (1985) that probably bare mentioning again. If you cut out all examples of montage from the film, it would run about twenty minutes. Also, one of my weirder movie moments was when my question about Sico the Robot got included in a Q and A with Stallone and aintitcoolnews.com (kids, ask your parents).

So what do we have here? I’m a little leery of director’s cut as a genre. We can get an infinite amount of re-edits of Blade Runner (1982), and it still never works for me*. The Godfather: Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone (2020) is still, basically The Godfather Part III (1990) with a slightly more sensical ending. And Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021) I was so tried of talking about by the time that it premiered, that it’s the only review I’ve so far outsourced.

Here, the robot is nowhere to be found. Could I have gotten into Stallone’s head? I can’t imagine so… And yet, I can’t rule it out, so that’s fun. Ultimately, the first half of the film is far less ashamed of itself than it once was, freeing it to be more about the friendship of Rocky (Stallone) and Apollo Creed (Weathers) that was started in Rocky III (1982). The second half of the film is largely the same, with a couple of exceptions. The politburo doesn’t get won over by Rocky’s victory. Also, there is no echo of the end of Rocky II (1979), which I only realize now never worked for me.

This is ultimately still a movie aggressively tethered to the 1980s that is about a man winning the Cold War using only his fists, but it is a much better version of that insane movie.

*You can direct your ire to the comments section of that review.

Rocky IV (1985)

Director: Sylvester Stallone

Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Talia Shire, Burt Young, Dolph Lundgren

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, but let me tell you. We could dwell for a long spell on the fact that this is a film where the Balboa family buys—and incorporates into their family dynamic—a robot.

It’s a deeply perplexing turn in a series of films which is, at least nominally, about boxing. For years, it bugged me. Honestly, it should have bugged humanity. So, in the lead up to the release of Rocky Balboa (2006), when Stallone started answering questions coming from the readership of Aint It Cool News, I had the temerity to pose the question, and he answered it*. Honestly, he seemed kind of put out by being reminded about it. Cut to several years later, and apparently he included it because it was therapeutic to his autistic son and thus meant a lot to him. Had that been the answer back then, I might have felt bad about it at the time.

Did I Like It: Here’s a potentially controversial statement: If Stallone isn’t a truly great director, then he is certainly one of the most consistently underestimated directors. Truly, the fact that he was able to assemble one of the most beloved 80s cinematic confections, when the objective truth is that there is 40 minutes of actual plot here (the rest is filled with endless variations on the same montage), and that plot centers around a former low-level mob enforcer single-handedly winning the Cold War with his fists… Well, it’s a Rocky film, the fists aren’t even all that important. The guy defeated the Soviet Union by being able to take a punch.

I can’t account for how the film is so insanely watchable even now. So much so that it’s certainly on my agenda to take in Stallone’s recently released director’s cut.

I even hear that he cut the robot out of the new version. Maybe he felt bad about it, too.

*Don’t believe me? You can read about it all here. I swear to God I had a devil of a time trying to track down a 17-year-old article in the archives of a website which has essentially—and justifiably—been abandoned. Coming up short for the better part of an hour, I was starting to feel like Winston Smith quietly suspecting that the truth about Eurasia (or a robot named Sico) had been deleted by forces unknown.

Rocky II (1979)

Director: Sylvester Stallone

Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Talia Shire, Burt Young, Carl Weathers

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure.

Did I Like It: It’s been the one entry of the whole series (aside from the positively inert Rocky V (1990)) that I have re-visited the least.

For so many years, I had dismissed it as just Rocky (1976) except Balboa (Stallone, taking over directing duties here from John G. Avildsen) wins his fight with Apollo Creed (Weathers) at the end.

But that’s not quite right, I’ve realized. To say nothing of the fact that Tarantino went on and on about how this one is not only great, but perhaps even better than the original*, it was definitely worth a re-examination.

I’ve long defended Rocky III (1982) as the story of someone who may have peaked, and yet struggles to find a continuing source of the drive that got him there to begin with. This is—despite my deep, nostalgic-tinged love for it—the assessment of a fifteen year old. That quality that Stallone can—and eventually does—tap into in his sleep is really on full display here. At least it’s more poignant here, to a near 40-year-old. Finding drive after you have reached the unassailable top of your game is a story of interest to only a few. If these movie reviews somehow made me the next Siskel and/or Ebert, I don’t think I would be all that worried about keeping the hustle going.

As Rocky had his shot at the title, trying to move on from that glorious moment is something he’s just not that equipped to do. How does a hero move on from the reasonable conclusion of his story? he has to go through the ordeal all over again. That ethos that I always saw in the third Rocky had been staring at me in this one**. I’m going to have to re-order my order-of-preference for the series.

• I love you as much as the next guy, Q, but let’s get serious…

** Could it be that “Eye of the Tiger” recommends a movie that strongly?

Rambo (2008)

Director: Sylvester Stallone

Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Julie Benz, Paul Schulze, Matthew Marsden

Have I Seen it Before: Oh sure.

Did I Like It: I keep struggling to come up with a conclusive, unifying opinion about this movie. It’s probably unnecessary in the larger mythos of Rambo, but than again that’s true of every movie in the series including that for which he is probably most well-known, Rambo: First Blood, Part II (1985).

It tries to bring the character to some kind of catharsis and redemption (indeed, a specifically religious one) to its main character, but at the same time can’t (and, if I’m being honest, probably shouldn’t) escape the series black heart, and still tries to leave things open for one more, even more bleak and embarrassing entry in the series.

And yet there’s a concerted effort to make a different kind of Rambo movie, here, and it’s surely to Stallone’s credit that this is the only film in the series which he helms himself. It’s somehow the most violent entry in the series (truly amazing, when glib, jingoistic carnage has been the most consistent fuel for each film) but that violence feels real. Others might find the verisimilitude of the viscera too much to handle and somehow less “fun” than what came before, but as unsure I am about the film, the one thing I am sure of is that those others are bad people. There is pain and terror with each splash of the bloodbath. It would be deeply insane to call this (or any of them) the most socially conscious Rambo film, but it is impossible to deny that Stallone has a visual perspective, understands the character—or what he has become in the cultural zeitgeist—and wants to do something with the film.

More so than any of the other films—aside from First Blood (1982)—this feels like a real, if flawed, film.

At least I won’t have to write a review of Rambo: Last Blood (2019) again. There’s only so much one can say about Rambo, right?

Rambo III (1988)

Director: Peter MacDonald

Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Richard Crenna, Kurtwood Smith, Marc de Jonge

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure.

Did I Like It: There’s a weird irony here that the politics of this film are the ones that almost play out like a joke. I’d bet at least some amount of money that when things came to pass—and the Carolco bankruptcy and intellectual properties were all sorted out—on a fourth Rambo movie, there was at least some talk about the story for that film involving the friends and allies Rambo makes in this film suddenly becoming the villains. That movie would have been terrible, but it’s a reality I can’t quite avoid as this one unfurls. That and the fact that The Living Daylights (1987) covered a lot of the same ground and feels like a far less perfunctory entry in its respective series.

And it’s that perfunctory quality which brings me the most down on the whole thing. This could have—and let’s face it, is—an action story that could be filled by any other icon of the 80s. John McClane could have fought with the Mujahideen (and it wouldn’t have been all that different than the later films in that series). I’d have to double check (I’m not going to), but its entirely possible there is a Jack Ryan story set entirely in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation. Any Chuck Norris/Jean-Claude Van Damme/Dolph Lundgren movie could have wound up there. It might have been a challenge to jam Conan the Barbarian, but an industrious (or profoundly lazy, take your pick) screenwriter could have gotten the job done. First Blood (1982) and—for better or worse—Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985), and even the later stories are stories suited especially for him. This ain’t that.

But do you want to know what really struck me about the whole affair. We have no way to ask the man, but I get the distinct impression that Jerry Goldsmith was at best ambivalent about his contributions to Rambo-ology. There are several cues in this score which sound like they were pulled from a soundtrack to a Friday the 13th movie. At first, I thought I was only hearing it during scenes focusing on the occupying Soviets, but I know I heard it in one scene that focused on Rambo and Rambo alone wreaking his particular brand of destruction. It’s not a bad hit on the character, comparing him with a mindless, unkillable killer, but one wonders if Stallone even noticed the comparison.

Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985)

Director: George P. Cosmatos

Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Richard Crenna, Charles Napier, Steven Berkoff

Have I Seen it Before: Between cable and spending most of the 00s sitting on a couch, I was bound to catch the film by osmosis alone. And that’s not even counting the select scenes that are forever etched into my brain because they were featured in Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990).

Did I Like It: I like First Blood (1982) quite a bit, and I really, really, found Rambo: Last Blood (2019) to be one of the more annoying movies I ever had to sit through in recent years, to the point where I can’t quite account for how Stallone is still able to be a part of good movies.

So, where does this one land? It’s probably the most iconic outing for the character. When you think of Rambo, you’re probably half-remembering some scene from this movie above all others. That counts for something. A movie doesn’t become iconic without some kind of virtue raising that profile. Even The Room (2003) has an watchable quality.

And damned if I didn’t passively enjoy this film. Maybe its the James Cameron story providing the backbone for the script. Maybe it’s just the undeniable visceral (and sometimes filled with viscera) experience of seeing an angry man blow up as many people as possible with some kind of vaguely altruistic reason. I’m along for the ride, no matter how ridiculous it objectively is, and no matter how preposterously removed the character suddenly becomes from his origins*.

But it only lasts so long. After all of the violence is over, and Stallone feels an inexplicable need to drive home the “lesson” of it all, and I’m out. Completely. Matters are not helped even a little bit by the fact that with such treacle filling ones ears, it has to be drilled home even further by a Frank Stallone song… And not even a good one.

*Although, to be fair, not quite as insanely divorced as the animated series Rambo: The Force of Freedom, a subsequent attempt to jam David Morell’s novel into a G.I. Joe clone.

First Blood (1982)

Director: Ted Kotcheff

Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Richard Crenna, Brian Dennehy, David Caruso

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure.

Did I Like It: Wildly—and I do mean wildly—inconsistent tiling of the series aside, is there a series that starts in a place so different than what it eventually (and almost immediately after this film’s runtime ends) becomes? Given that this first film that features Rambo (Stallone) portrays him as an live current of PTSD that eventually collapses into an emotional meltdown which subsequently leads to his surrender, I don’t think that other sharp left turn exists. It would be like Robocop spending his first film as a florist working through an oedipal complex.

That may read as snark, but I really think that makes this film fascinating. There are few major movie stars who have usually been fueled by their ego than Stallone, so those brief instances where he sheds that baggage* are stark and can’t be ignored.

The film also presents an interesting political paradox. In 2023 it’s hard to fathom a film that steadfastly sympathizes with Vietnam veterans (to the point of never really reckoning with the notion that the war should never have happened in the first place) and inescapably comes to the conclusion that all cops have a predilection for bastardy**.

Taken on its own merits, it’s hard to find fault in a movie that resoundingly embraces such conflicting ideas (that an action movie can approach any idea makes the whole affair seem quaint). It’s also so refreshing that Stallone leaved well enough alone and let the film stand on its own for all time…

Oh, wait. Not only does he compulsively and irrationally go back to the well here, to the point where endless bouts as Rocky seem restrained by comparison… But I took the bait and bought the entire series on iTunes. Now I have to watch them. I have nothing but dread in my bones. All I can hope is that Rambo will kill me swiftly before I bring myself to watch Rambo: Last Blood (2019) again.

*Even the early Rocky films can’t completely shed this impulse, only Creed (2015) comes anywhere close.

**At least those not played by David Caruso…

Rambo: Last Blood (2019)

Director: Adrian Grünberg

Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Paz Vega, Sergio Peris-Mencheta, Adriana Barraza

Have I Seen it Before: Nope. Reviews were pretty toxic so it just floated right past me.

Did I Like It: And I’m not entirely certain it deserves such a toxic review. It is no worse than my memories of the next most recent entry in the series, Rambo (2008), and I’d challenge another series whose clear heyday was in the 80s to make an entry that doesn’t serve to completely embarrass everyone involved. John Rambo kills a lot of people in an endless series of squib explosions and with an uncontrollable ferocity. It’s not like the recipe for one of these films is complex. One might feel the need to complain about the racist undercurrent through the film, but that probably disingenuously ignoring the rest of the franchise.

I say the movie only manages to avoid complete embarrassment, because it isn’t like I don’t feel a little bit bad for Stallone at the end of this one. For anyone looking for anything remotely on the same scale as Ryan Coogler’s Creed (2015), prepare yourself for disappointment. Then again, those constantly expecting a film as good as Creed are going to spend the majority of their movie-going time living with disappointment. Did we need to know more about what happened to John Rambo (Stallone) after he returned to his family home? Better yet, did we need this film to leave things open for yet another improbably sequel? The story seems so incidental to the character as depicted in First Blood (1982) that I can’t help but wonder if this was a script languishing in some B-movie producers library before someone got around to doing a Control-F and replacing Rambo with a role that could have easily been played by any aging action star.

I can’t seem to find any reference to back it up, but I have the strongest memory that at some point that there was plan to have Rambo square off with an alien invader. Now that would have been a film worth writing home about.

Creed II (2018)

Director: Steven Caple Jr.

Cast: Michael B. Jordan, Tessa Thompson, Sylvester Stallone, and Dolph Lundgren

Have I Seen it Before: Well, no… But I’ve seen a Rocky movie before, so in a sense, yes… But don’t let that scare you away.

Did I Like It: Yes. What’s not to like?

Highly dubious spoilers about the film to follow.

Look, even if Ryan Coogler had directed the followup to his transcendent Creed (2015), it probably wouldn’t have been quite as searingly good as the original film, and in that parallel dimension, Black Panther (2018) is directed by some lesser mortal. So, as long as we get that out of the way, Creed II is still pretty terrific. Taking the bones of the most preposterous (not necessarily bad) Rocky movie and making a familiar rehash. But if this series is the Thanksgiving dinner of movies, then I’m glad that we still get a feast every once in a while. It is a delicious meal that cannot help but make one feel good.

It’s predictability may keep it from completely blowing the paint off the walls, but it does manage to throw some curve balls. Adonis is brought low in the second act not by losing his newly won Championship Title to the antagonist, but retaining it in a fight he was well on his way to losing, had not the referee’s ruling disqualified the Baby Drago (Florian Munteanu, who with his quiet anguis may take the title of best actual-boxer to play in these movies). That’s mildly surprising, but when Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren, doing easily his best work, lurching through scenes like a coiled snake ready to pounce) throws in the towel ending the final battle between the two younger fighters, my jaw hit the ground. I would have been highly dubious if someone told me that this movie could have easily been called The Redemption of Ivan Drago, but here we are, proving once and for all that if he can change, really, truly, everyone can change.

Cue the end of the United States’ current troubles with Russia, no?

Ahem.

Now, Stallone recently announced (although it wouldn’t be completely out of the question to guess that he might be engaging in contract negotiations through the press) that this will be his swan song as Balboa. I think I’m okay with this. As I mentioned in my review of Creed, I kind of assumed that our last ride with the Stallion had happened years ago, and if this is it, that’s okay. It was nice to get some extra time with him. But, with that doubt in the back of my mind, it might even be better that we may have more time with him yet to come.

Creed (2015)

Director: Ryan Coogler

Cast: Michael B. Jordan, Tessa Thompson, Phylicia Rashad, and (against all odds, as it should be) Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa

Have I Seen it Before: Man, I was there opening weekend.

Did I Like It: What a stupid idea for a movie, and yet it was executed flawlessly.

As the end credits for Rocky Balboa (2006) begin, a feeling always came over me. This is it. This is the end. It was great while it lasted, Rock. Thanks for coming back one last time.

And here we are, again. And man am I glad.

Just to pitch the idea for a seventh Rocky movie takes a certain amount of bravery-to-the-point of insanity, to then turn around and make such a vital, necessary film is an act of subtle, but superlative genius. To wit, this moment that I may be paraphrasing:

ADONIS

Why do you want to be a singer?

BIANCA

It makes me feel alive.

ADONIS says nothing, smiles slightly.

That is amazing. New and fresh and interesting and incisive like a blade.

And yet, it is Rocky through and through. The film is so steeped in the mythology of the previous entries in the series. The whole movie wouldn’t exist without Rocky IV (1985). Rocky would be a completely different character without Rocky V (1990) and Rocky Balboa (2006). Ever wonder who won the top secret fight at the end of Rocky III (1982), well this movie has your answer. Coogler and company love making a great movie, but they love every Rocky just as much. These movies have a format, but when the inevitable third act training montage comes barreling down the tracks, even it is born again, without ever being ashamed of its roots. 

When the book on the greatest directors of all time is finished, Ryan Coogler will get his own chapter, and Black Panther (2018) is only a piece of that.

As sharp as Coogler’s choices are, he would be nowhere without his cast. Michael B. Jordan cements himself as a bona fide movie star while still channeling Carl Weathers just enough. Tessa Thompson is such a fabulous actress, with a naturalistic chameleon quality that I only just now realized she is the same actress from Thor: Ragnarok (2017). And then there is Stallone. Frankly, he deserved the Oscar for this round as Rocky. He so thoroughly abandons any sense of ego he might have once had—and his self-image in the 80s was undeniable—to play a Rocky laid low, but still resolute. That there is more Rocky to explore is staggering.

Just as an aside, a weird moment that I hadn’t fully digested in previous viewings: The moment where Adonis (Jordan) does an impression of Brando from The Godfather (1972). Which leads me to this strange question: In the Rockyverse do both Adrian Balboa and the actress Talia Shire exist? Maybe Creed II (2018) will finally shed some light on that. Maybe it’ll take several more movies before we get that answer. That suits me just fine. Keep ‘em coming, Rock.

Rocky III (1982)

Director: Sylvester Stallone

Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Talia Shire, Burt Young, Carl Weathers, Burgess Meredith Mr. T, and Hulk Hogan as essentially himself*

Have I Seen it Before: Honestly, I’ve probably seen it more than any other film in the Rocky series… Which brings me to…

Did I Like It: You’re going to call me crazy, but…

Rocky III may be my favorite of the Rocky films. I really, really enjoy this movie. You might say it’s entirely tied to Survivor’s superlative lets-get-pumped “Eye of the Tiger,” but my appreciation for this movie goes deeper. I own a framed poster of the movie. Now, my wife eventually asked that I take it (or as she refers to it “my framed photo of a greased, half-naked Sylvester Stallone) off the wall, but that’s a story for a different time…

Sure, the original is a classic, and Rocky IV is perhaps the most sublimely ridiculous 80s cornball comic book movie, and the fact that Rocky Balboa (2006) and Creed (2015) were able to get more blood out of that stone (or Rock) is a pretty impressive… But this movie is nearly the perfect distillation of what the Rocky series is. It’s the perfect blend of the heart and the cornball that made the series indelible, and helped it win the Cold War, in that order…

There’s a self-awareness to the proceedings that’s endearing when it isn’t purely entertaining, or more accurately, completely wrong. Mickey (Burgess Meredith) turns to Adrian (Talia Shire) during one of the more bombastic scenes and Another moment I can’t help but chuckle at is the boxing announcers assertion in the lead up to the climactic battle between Rocky (Stallone) and Clubber Lang (Mr. T) that this is “absolutely his last fight, win, lose, or draw.” That’s pretty funny, as I’m still not 100% sure that we’ve seen the Italian Stallion’s last fight… at least outside of the ring.

*Between this and Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990), I’m surprised to realize how many films I really enjoy feature the once and future Terry Bollea.

Rocky (1976)

Director: John G. Avildsen

Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Talia Shire, Burt Young, Burgess Meredith, and lest we forget Carl Weathers

Have I Seen it Before: Probably not as many times as I’ve seen Rocky III (1982). I’m not sure what that says about me.

Did I Like It: Hey, yo… I’m not—like—mentally irregular or nothin’.

I’m going to put a thought out there, and if somebody has a different take on this, I’d love to hear it. But if you haven’t already seen Rocky, then at this point, you’re probably not that interested in it. If you have, you probably already have opinions on not only it, but the entire cottage industry that stemmed from this little seed of a movie. With that, we’ll proceed.

It’s difficult to write about a film like this critically. It’s beloved, and with good reason. It is filled with heart, most of it coming from a single source—Stallone, writing but not quite directing—long before he developed the ego that caused some of his later work to drift into the increasingly absurd and occasionally obnoxious. The original film in the Balboa saga is so steeped in the aesthetic of bleak 70s cinema, but may be one of the most rousing film of all time. Most would say the feel-good streak in American cinema began with Star Wars (1977), but I think it started here and only grew as things progressed into the 80s.

It’s an odd movie to consider in context, though. It spawned (so far) seven sequels. That’s mind boggling if you isolate to yourself to the proceedings of this film. With it throwing its weight around during the ’77 Academy Award, extending its underdog bona fides via Stallone sudden propulsion to stardom, I can’t help but think of it in similar terms to Good Will Hunting (1997). Could you imagine seven sequels to that movie? Actually Good Will Hunting III: The Great Beyond (2005), wherein Matt Damon rips open the space-time continuum with his groundbreaking work at CERN  That would also make Affleck the modern Stallone in my book, which… You know, that actually tracks.