Like most of you, I grew up knowing the story of Rocky Balboa, the fictional boxer that may of maynot be based on Rocky Marciano depending on who you ask. I, like many of you, ran up the biggest set of stairs you could find wile humming the theme song, only to get to the top toss your hands up like Rocky does in the first movie, and may for maynot have yelled "Adrian!!!" up there as well. i mention this because of one simple fact, Rocky, as a saga, is inbeded in the popular culture of america and some other parts of the world as well. We all know the stories, we all know the people he's fought, and we all know that if it came to another fight Apollo Creed would have knocked Rocky so hard he'd talk right.
So, knowing all of this, and knowing that Stallone is now over 60 years old, I have to ask this simple question. Rocky Balboa, WTF?
The closest to an answer that I can think of is, that no one wanted Rocky V to be the final chapter, sence well, lets face it, Rocky V sucked more cock then the head cheerleader after her team won homecoming. And I guess Sly wanted the final chapter of the character so many link him too, to have a somewhat dignified ending. Atleast thats my guess. I guess, in a way it does give Rocky a respectable definative ending, and if this movie was done maybe 10 years ago, it would have been harolded as a great ending to a long running movie saga. Mostly because it seems to bring everyone full circle, if anything its overly faithfull to the older movies to the point where if you are one of the 10 people on the planet that hasn't seen them, you won't have a clue whats going on in most of it. And I will give Sly credit for not only stating that he knows Rocky V sucked, but coming up with a well thought out and logical answer to all of the unanswered questions brought up by this movie.
See, the whole idea of this movie is, an ESPN fight simulator ranks that Rocky would beat the man who is the heavyweight boxing champ of the world at the moment. From there, all these people around Rocky start to mention it, and the press creates a storm wondering if Rocky will come out of retirement to actually fight this guy. Rocky conciders it, and after abit of time pondering, in this time we find out that Ardien died "of woman's cancer" in 2002. After abit of time speaking with his son (played by Milo Ventimiglia better known as Peter Petrelli on the show Heroes), and his old friends, Rocky again, trains and comes out of retirement.
This is where this movie becomes every Rocky movie before it, 50 or so minutes of training and interaction with his friends and family who are telling him that he can't actually beat whoever it is he's fighting. Seriously, you could take every single rocky movie and watch them, you will see what I mean. Its all set to the same old rocky music as the others, and like in Rocky III and V, Duke, former trainer of Apollo Creed trains Rocky, I would have loved to see Bergis Merideth return, but saddly, do that, we would need zombies, sence Bergis is dead and all. Duke trains Rocky much like he did in the movies before this one, cept for making jokes about his age this time mixed in there for comedic effect. As for how the movie ends? I won't tell you, if you really want to see it, then you can go have a look yourself, or go get that really good copy of the dvdscreener thats out there on the internet.
As for what I thought of this movie personally? As I stated earlyer, if this was made 10 years ago, this movie would have been great. The idea of an almost 60 year old boxer getting in the ring and fighting the best fighter in the world at the moment is so unrealistic that it actually insults the rest of the movie, which is really rather realistic, I do like that it ties up the loose ends of every single character in the Rocky saga, even his pet Turtles he's had sence the first movie. But saddly, I think its abit to late. And as he's gotten older, Stallone's horrable accent has gotten worse, its become harder and harder to understand him, I would really like subtitles whenever he speaks. So I can understand it!
I guess though, all and all, this did what it was ment to do, let Rocky end with some class. Even if no one cares anymore. I guess as long as its not a sequil to Cobra, it can't be all bad.
I'll give it a rating of 5 out of 10. it loses three points for being so much later then the others, it loses one point for all the old jokes, and one point for Adrien being dead with out her Rocky is just a dumb old boxer with afew to many headknocks. So see it if you dare, or wait for it to be out on dvd by the spring, or on tv by the summer, if nothing else it'll be good "saturday afternoon movie" fodder.
-
Laz
0 comments:
Post a Comment