A worthy sequal to the incredible smash of '76

Rating: Null/10 (9 March 2003)

Sly Stallone stars back into the role that made him an icon today. In Rocky II, Rocky is suggested to stop fighting due to an eye injury that was sustained when battling Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers). Rocky marries his girlfriend Adrian (Talia Shire) and notices that things are not going great in his retired life. Apollo then claims to the media that he feels that the fight between him and Balboa was luck for Rocky. He wants to have a rematch to show the world that he is the far greater athlete than Rocky. Rocky, seeing no other option decides he must go the distance with Creed one more time. Sly shows good acting tallent (especially when Shire goes into her comma sequence) but there seemed to be ingredients with his acting here that weren't in the original. i think I figured it out that Sylvester acts more serious in the first than in Rocky II and on. During the fight I felt that the image could have been better if Carl Weathers had no matereal in the script to say. But enough about the negatives, R2 still has the right ingredients to make the viewer feel good. I'm talking the excellent training session in preperation to Rocky's big rematch. That was well done. In conclusion I feel that the sequals should have stopped here (except for the good Rocky IV). This one is one of the only sequals that has the right impact. 7.0/10