One of the greatest sequels of all time!

Rating: 10/10 (26 March 2003)

Rocky II was a true continuation story of Rocky the underdog.This time the obstacles he has to overcome include his sight depletion,lack of
mainsteam work qualifications-partially due to illiteracy,Adrian's complications during child birth{coma} & his promise to ADRIAN he would retire from the ring.Rocky's personality overcomes all because he is
a champion in life.He has tremendous personal qualities of family values,religion,loyalty,fidelity,coachability,ability to get along with others,kindness to animals & sense of humor.One of my favorite all-time lines is when GAZZO asks if he would like to invest some of the winnings from his first fight into 'condominiums' & Rocky replies 'I never use them'.Classic!Beyond Rocky himself,Burgess Meredith gives what I consider the greatest performance as a fight manager/trainer in the history of movies.Mickey {Meredith} was crusty,tough, & 'old school' as they come.Meredith delivered such powerful acting as the taskmaster trainer that you could feel his inner strength.He was a man who overcame life's hard knocks to get his shot WITH ROCKY as champion of the world.It was MICKEY'S years of learning & retaining while getting slammed that allowed him to put his life & soul into ROCKY BALBOA.He tells ROCKY in the chapel while they were praying for ADRIAN that if ROCKY wanted give up his title shot & fail that he MICKEY would be willing to fail right along with him.He stayed there in the chapel praying & in the hospital with Rocky until Adrian awoke.Last TALIA Shire was beautiful in this film.Adrian's shyness was gone because of her new confidence from her love & marriage to ROCKY.All this seemed to reflect in Adrian's{SHIRES} moody eyes.Her eyes really shined in her romantic scenes with ROCKY;her eyes showed anger at the commercial people,& and her eyes showed deep disappointment when Rocky & Mickey agreed to the rematch with CREED.Weathers once again was simply outstanding as APOLLO CREED.This time he was fighting for his broken pride which could not accept that Balboa had taken him 15 rounds as some unknown club fighter.But CREED learned that ROCKY was much more than that.He was a champion waiting to happen.Godfather II got all the awards, but ROCKY II has all the heart.To this day Rocky Balboa is an international hero.Just like this sequel!

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