Oddly enough, my favorite Rocky movie.

Rating: 8/10 (7 March 2009)

This Rocky movie is a rather quick flowing film compared to the first movies and features a bit more comedy while still having drama and inspirational scenes that were pivotal in the first two movies. The fights are different here too, as in this film we do not have the 15 round beat downs of the first films, but rather three rounds of pure hard hitting. In this one we start out with a strange charity match as Rocky the heavyweight champion of boxing goes against the heavyweight champion of wrestling, Thunderlipps (Hulk Hogan in his only decent appearance in a movie, then again it is not really a stretch). This match is rather entertaining and funny, but soon Rocky must face a new challenger to his belt, the very tough Clubber Lang played by a very tough Mr. T. Mickey does not want Rocky to fight this guy as Mickey has seen that Rocky has lost the fire in his eyes that got him the title and would most likely lose to this determined if a bit arrogant new fighter. Well they do end up fighting and Rocky loses and gets hit even worse by the passing of his mentor. Apollo having witnessed the fight and not liking Clubber Lang at all offers to help Rocky train and thus a new friendship is born. The training is nice to watch and I like how Rocky does different strategies against Clubber in the final fight. Sure this movie is a bit more over the top than the previous Rocky movies, it to me is still my favorite.