"They don't remember you. They remember the rep!"

Rating: 10/10 (29 June 2009)

Spoilers I assume you saw this movie. The movie Rocky is about a down and out boxer in Philadelphia that gets a shot at the heavyweight boxing championship of the world and goes the distance with the Champ Appollo Creed, who no one ever went the distance with. At the same time it has a romance story between Rocky and his friends sister Adreinne.
The movie Rocky was the first to display the formula that many other movies followed to success. It used stark realism and a "not so Hollywood" result of losing the final fight, combined with the irony of Rocky wining his first fight a being considered a bum, topped off with inspirational music to bring the audience a realistic feeling of triumph of the human spirit. The movie is more successful than the many movies that followed it including all of the 5 Rocky sequels. Why? Well many have wondered about that. I have often thought about writing a fight club for women. I came up with a movie and guess what, it is really a rehashing of part of this story, revolving around someone like Adriene. The super success and critical accaim of this masterpiece lies in the fact that we have a movie of two characters being transformed by love, Rocky and Adrienne. This transformation is choreographed to great music.
Stallone was a down and out actor pitching a movie about a wrestler called "Paradise Alley", which no one wanted to make, when he as a second thought, pitched this movie to Hollywood execs. Stallone had not been remembered for his role in the Lords of Flatbush and he did not have much of a reputation at all.
He broke through with Rocky because it had tremendous supporting performances from Talia Shire, and Burt Young, not to mention Burgess Meredith, who I always thought of as the Penquin from the Batman TV Show, until I saw his great performance in this movie.
He also got a tremendous effort from Bill Conti who wrote the music. I read Stallone's original script, and I believe, the Director Mr. Alvidsen also did a great job editing the movie to the music. He also cut a lot of less meaningful scenes out of the end of the movie, to enable the music to overwhelm the audience in the end. (If you listen to the movie, the music is almost non-existent in the beginning and the music is more complex orchestrated and in every scene by the end)
Talia Shire played Adrian the shy sister of Pauley, Rocky's best friend. As such, she had to show us she was shy, which is very hard to do on screen. She shows through fleeting glances at Rocky that Adrian has an interest in Rocky that she can not bring herself to show outwardly. She also brings out an underlying intensity when arguing with her brother, showing that when shy little Adrian is passionate, she can really gets her point across.
After the big fight with Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers), Adrian also charges through thousands of people when Rocky calls her at the end of the movie, which in miniature, became the formula for romantic comedies after this movie. Two people separated by obstacles come closer and closer until they finally get past all of the obstacles and get together.
The music of Rocky was awesome and inspirational. I especially liked the song "Going The Distance", which played during the big ending fight from Round 3 to round 14, when Rocky is taking the beating and hanging in. It is the most inspirational song in the Rocky movies. I also liked the song "You Take My Heart Away", which plays during the romantic scene when Rocky takes Adrian's hat and glasses off of her and reveals the real Adrian for the beauty she is.
In all a very ground breaking movie and rightfully it has been copied numerous times but never equaled.