Apollo's mad

Rating: 8/10 (11 November 2008)

So when Apollo says at the end of the first film that there isn't going to be any rematch (sorry, "ain't gonna be no rematch"), I'm thinking that it was probably because no one really knew how big the movie was going to be. I think the original film was meant to be a single movie that stood on its own, but a sequel was squeezed out when it turned out to be a Best Picture winner, and since this first sequel was so good, it seems only natural that it should be followed by four more, right?
The movie starts off exactly where the original film left off. It even shows the last few minutes of the last film before continuing on to the hospital, where Creed's attitude has changed drastically. He is no longer telling Rocky that there will be no rematch, now he's so angry that he's demanding, from his wheelchair, that Rocky get up out of his own wheelchair right then and there and they'll finish the fight.
Rocky, in his unique way, politely wonders what Apollo's so mad about, but ultimately they both go their separate ways in the hospital because, of course, neither can really stand up under their own power too well by this point.
Rocky and Adrian are now married and shopping for a new house and a new life together using Rocky's winnings from his first fight with Apollo. But the money goes quickly, even though it was such a huge and commercially successful spectacle. You remember in the original film, for his amateur fights, his total prize money was something like $40. Rocky brought home tens of thousands from the fight with Apollo, but he and Adrian bought a house and a car and various other essentials and soon found themselves again with little to no money and a whole list of new expenses.
Rocky promised Adrian that he wouldn't fight anymore because she just can't handle the stress and the emotional trauma of watching her love getting battered all over the ring, so when Apollo begins publicly chastising Rocky for winning by freak chance and demanding that he face him again in the ring, Rocky has to grin and bear it even though he is forced to earn money doing janitorial work at the local boxing gym.
The movie works because it plays on all the things about Rocky's personality that made us love him in the first place. A lesser film would have had the hero angrily fling his mop and bucket against the wall and get right up in Apollo's face, but Rocky is more devoted to his wife than to his public image, so he literally does grin and ignore the taunts and demands coming from Rocky, even though his life has become something so timid and moneyless.
Adrian hears the demands and watches Rocky worriedly, afraid that he is going to give in to the pressure and endanger his safety again, but even though Rocky is tentatively interested in defending his reputation in the ring, it is more important to him to make his wife happy.
But both are driven to the ring because Apollo has lost the respect of his fans, who think that he was paid to take a fall, and Rocky and Adrian are on their way to the poor house. It is one of the film's few week moments when she changes her mind and urges him to fight again, but the formula that we saw and loved from the first film comes back and it still works here.
The only major drawback of the first Rocky sequel is that it is much, much too sappy. There are genuine emotional moments when Adrian falls into a coma after giving birth to their son, but mostly it is things like the army of thousands of children following Rocky completely parent-less as he goes on one of his famous training runs. I realize he's famous in Philadelphia now, but an endless crowd of children? Come onÂ…
The fight at the end of the movie fulfills a dream that was unfulfilled in the first movie, and some people will argue that it is unnecessary since, in some ways, it sort of negates the whole purpose of the first movie ending the way it did, but Rocky II is such a good movie that this doesn't seem to matter. The fight's not as well done as in the original film, for most of the time you may find yourself wondering why Rocky, from start to finish, doesn't block Apollo's punches at ALL, but it is no less exciting. In the world of sequels, this is definitely among the best ones.
Oh and by the way, Rocky II was released the day after I was born!