The saga continues in an improved fashion

Rating: 6/10 (12 October 2017)

Here we have "Rocky II", an American 2-hour film from 1979, so this one will have its 40th anniversary soon. The first Rocky won big at the Oscars and this one here is the sequel, the first of many in fact. It is once again about Sylvester Stallone, who not only wrote the script and played the title character like in the first, but even took over from the recently deceased Avildsen as director. The story continues right after the first ended, even the very same night as the two fighters are rolled out of the ring. And once more, Weathers' Apollo Creed is the main antagonist here as this film is all about a rematch from film 1. Never change a winning script may have been their idea here as you will find more parallels. Rocky is more than ever the hero for the simple, maybe underprivileged and they badly want him to win this time. But Creed will take his opponent seriously now for sure. The Oscar-nominated supporting actors are back to, even if Young's impact was really minimal. Meredith had slightly better material. And shire is back too, not just in a stable relationship with Rocky now, but even married and becoming a mother. Other than that, I had the impression they did not really know what to do with her character anymore as some of the film's weakest moments were about her like the proposal to call the kid Rocky Jr. or the rushed in coma drama honestly did not help at all. But on a more positive approach, the quote about a woman staying a woman and a man staying a man was maybe the most memorable moment of the entire film.
But the film's biggest weakness, like for the first already, was the fight in the last half hour. It really is close to a negative deal breaker because it has absolutely nothing to do with real boxing. Cover (is that the word? we say "Deckung" here in Germany) and defense were completely nonexistent and honestly from the beating Rocky gets in rounds 1 and 2, it would have been over right away in reality. But here, of course the comeback happens. And don't even get me started on the synchronous falling down in round 15 (ofc!). It is highly cringeworthy and very obvious that this was actors performing a scripted confrontation. Such a pity as everything before was solid, even strong at times. The eventually positive verdict I give this movie is really only because the horrible execution in the last half hour still did not manage to destroy my curiosity who would triumph in the end. The film ends as abrupt as the first with the announcement of the winner. As for the first Rocky, that one also really struggled with the fight sequence, but had several other weaknesses too why I believe that this one we got here is certainly better than the 1976 film, which is perhaps the worst Best Picture Academy Award winner I have seen. This one here has better potential and I think if Rocky had decided not to fight in the face of the birth and his wife's critical condition (oh wait look at her miracle recovery), this film would have been even way better, a crucial character study. But I can see why they wanted the fight to happen again because many of the more simple audience members would have been disappointed with the build-up and then nothing. But these are probably also the ones who thought the fight was the best thing about the film and still think they know their stuff about boxing. Okay, drifting away now a bit. Overall, I give this first Rocky sequel a thumbs-up and recommend checking it out, even if turning it off after 90 minutes may be a wise decision and just read what happened in the final quarter.