Rocky - where it all started

Rating: 10/10 (30 May 2019)

The Rocky franchise is nowadays considered to be one of the greatest film franchises one of all time. It's not so strange when you see that this series has been going ever since the 70's and it continues to this very day through the Creed films. In this review I'm going to take a look at the film that started it all, simply known as «Rocky»
Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) is small-time boxer in Philadelphia who works as a debt collector for a loan shark. Rocky is poor and isn't respected very well by the public. Despite working as a debt collector, he has a good heart. We see that Rocky is supposed to break a guy's thump, because the guy didn't have enough money for the loan shark, but Rocky refuses to do so. Rocky pursues a relationship with the shy pet-shop worker Adrian (Talia Shire), who isn't respected very well by her brother Paulie (Burt Young). Here we see good things and bad things that Rocky goes through in his life, but then one day, Rocky's life changes forever. The world heavyweight champion, Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers), decides to fight an unknown fighter, because his opponent got injured and can't compete the fight that Apollo spent a lot of money in the marketing. Apollo chooses Rocky to be his new opponent because of his nickname «The Italian Stallion». Rocky accepts the fight and starts training. Rocky's trainer is Mickey (Burgess Meredith), who before the big fight always criticized Rocky for wasting his potential in becoming a great fighter. But after Rocky accepted the fight with Apollo, Mickey changes his mind and agrees to train Rocky. The film then builds up to the big fight, but then it shows that it's not about winning, it's about doing the best as you can.
The plot is very simple as it's about an underdog boxer being challenged by the champ. But the film is about more than just boxing; the film is all about the characters, especially the main character. Rocky started out as a poor part-time boxer with almost no belief in himself. Rocky is a very relatable character who goes through many difficult obstacles in his life, just like real people. After the champ challenges him, Rocky gains more self respect and wants to show the world that he's more than just some street rat. The development on the other characters are also great. Adrain started out as shy and with almost no self-respect mostly due to her abusive brother Paulie. But after failing in love with Rocky, she becomes a much stronger character and finally stands up against her brother. Paulie is also a great character, despite being a jerk to Adrian. He's Rocky's friend but he isn't very happy with his life, which explains his abusive nature. Mickey is Rocky's mentor and trainer who cares for Rocky, but was very frustrated by the fact that he wasted his potential before the big fight came in to the picture. He also has some of the funniest lines in the film such as «You're gonna eat lightning and crap thunder». Apollo is a very arrogant boxing champion, but at the same time he's fair.
The music composed by Bill Conti is excellent. For the most part, there are almost no music in this film, but when we do hear the music, it's very effective. The dark tunes such as «Philadelphia Morning» and «Alone in the Ring» are great as they show the struggles that Rocky has to go through in this film but at the same time we have the more optimistic tunes like «Gonna Fly Now» which shows how far Rocky has come in his training.
The film is very slow paced, but that's perfect for developing Rocky's and the other characters' development in the film. The film startes slow, because we're slowly learning about Rocky and at the same time get very sympathetic for him as he get's a lot trash talk from people. But when we come to the ice skating scene, the film will get you invested in what will happened for the rest of the film. Here you know who Rocky is and what makes him so interesting and you get very attached to him from then on before we get to the main plot of the film.
The actors does a brilliant job. With no doubts, Rocky is Stallone's best performance. His expressions and lines are delivered perfectly and he's very convincing. Talia, Burt, Carl and Burgess and other actors also does a great job in their roles. It also helps by the excellent script which makes the lines convincing.
But if there's one problem, then that is the fact the slow pacing and the simple plot will make some turn down the film, and it's not really about boxing unlike the sequels.
And also while the fight choreography is good and very realistic, some punches comes off as awkward as for example, there's one scene where Rocky is supposed to get hit by the champ, but it doesn't look like it.
However, since the rest of the film is so good, I don't mind these problems. I love this film. It's actually one of my favorite films of all time. The pacing is perfect, the music, the script and the actors are all great. I don't know what else I can say about film right now, but I highly recommend this film: 10/10.