Gritty, reality-based movie

Rating: Null/10 (5 November 1998)

I found Rocky to be a pretty good movie. I recently watched this movie for the third time and realized two things. 1) first, this movie wasn't as good as I remembered it to be. 2) secondly, this movie is a whole lot better than any other in the Rocky series.
The acting in this movie is adequate since this movie moves at a pretty slow pace. Stallone's performance was good, but not Oscar-worthy. All of the other characters play secondary roles in the film and don't really make a huge impact maybe with the exception of Mickey (Burgess Meredith). Perhaps if we had seen more interaction between Mickey and Rocky instead of a lot of wasted time following Rocky around Philadelphia, the movie would have been that much better.
I found the final fight scene in this film to be somewhat fake, because all of the boxing is pure offence. Rocky takes a turn beating on Creed and vise versa. Creed also seems unscathed after the 15 round match whereas Rocky doesn't look like the same Rocky that entered the ring. The film ends rather abruptly which I think was a very smart move. There was really no need to get into the after-fight details because they simply would have added very little to the story (also making room for a sequel(s)).
7/10 stars.