New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

First confession: I have never seen Rocky IV. This is only tangentially relevant to this week’s column, but it still seems shameful enough to warrant a confession and a caveat upfront, rather than attempting to fake the experience of seeing Sylvester Stallone battle Dolph Lundgren. And while I am unloading my conscience . . . I had never seen Top Gun in its entirety until three years ago when I finally caught it at the Laurelhurst - despite suffering the beginning onslaught of a Thanksgiving holiday cold that left me knee-high in the remnant of a box’s worth of used tissues by the time Maverick had Charlie back in his arms - and yet this never bothered me in the least. Why the concern and self-flagellation over missing out on one artifact of fist-pumping ‘80s American jingoism and not another? I’m not sure I have any satisfactory answers at this point.

Second confession: I had not watched Rocky II until last weekend. And this might simply be the afterglow of a viewing where I kept my expectations minimal, but I think it may be the most Chapter Two-iest film I have written about to date. What can I possibly mean by that? One answer is for me to paraphrase the cliché, "If you looked the word ‘sequel’ up in the dictionary, etc." That partially covers it. But I also think of the advertising slogan: Diet Dr. Pepper. It tastes more like regular Dr. Pepper. If you have ever been able to wrap your head around that, then you would understand when I say: Rocky II. It’s Rocky… only more so.

It serves just about every purpose for which a Hollywood sequel could/should be willed into existence. It begins with the closing minutes of Rocky and picks up seconds after that film ends, continuing the stories of all its characters in a logical fashion. It gives the audience exactly what it wants (or should want): another mano y mano between Rocky Balboa and Apollo Creed. This directly contradicts Apollo’s last words to Rocky that there would “be no rematch” and Rocky’s response that, “I don’t want one.” As writer and now director of the franchise, Stallone has the cajones to include those lines again in Rocky II, have the characters acknowledge they were uttered, and bulldoze over them anyway.

At 119 minutes, Rocky II is exactly as long as Rocky. It follows the same format as the first film. 70 minutes of set-up/build-up, 30 minutes of training, 20 minutes of bruised faces, broken noses and spilled bodily fluids. The famed jog through the streets of Philadelphia is recreated in loving homage that adds the only thing that one could argue was missing the first time around: a multi-culti gaggle of adoring kids there to spur the Italian Stallion on as he bounds up the steps outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art (and perhaps film a commercial for the President’s Council on Fitness when they’re done).

Continued:       1       2       3       4       5