"Iv he diez, he diez"

Rating: 4/10 (29 June 2000)

You know, I never really understood Rocky (7) when I was younger. I liked it, but I didn't really understand it. I didn't get that two men who go fifteen rounds without blocking a single punch aren't good boxers and would be brain damaged after one fight. I also didn't get that in the low-grade sanitised Scorcese streets of Rocky's neighbourhood that his friend Paulie using the word "freakin'" is not an expletive, more a way to ensure a PG certificate. I never got that Adrian had a man's name. I never got that the time allotted for Rocky to compete with the heavyweight champion of the world  five weeks  is an extremely unlikely premise. I mean, never mind Apollo Creed, even if the champ was Frank Bruno you'd need longer than five weeks. Most importantly, I never realised that Rocky actually loses, a grain of realism that would thereafter be abandoned.
Rocky II (6) is essentially Rocky with whistles and bells, while Rocky III (5) gave us a softened champ in the shortest of the franchise. The only Rocky film of the 90s, and, to date, the final instalment, Rocky V (4) gives Talia Shire and Burt Young get a little more to do than usual; Talia doing her narrative requirement of shouting "Rocky" at vital fight moments, thus causing the brain damaged Rocky's Palovian winning reaction. Rather like The Rolling Stones continuing to tour, this film, while vaguely entertaining, is a rather sad parody of it's former self.
Then there was Rocky IV. If you thought that Rocky III's "losing in yellow, triumphing when wearing the American flag" was unsubtle, then Rocky IV proved that we hadn't seen nuthin'. Paulie is underused comic foil; pratt falling in snow and playing with his six-foot robot, while Adrian is virtually absent and James Brown puts in an appearance. A horrifically bad sequel, its runtime is played out with a series of images set to tacky 80s MOR white rock. One of these overwrought pop videos even has Rocky's life, in the form of clips from the series, run before his eyes. Survivor's Eye of the Tiger is now the opening theme, the old Rocky brass fanfare abandoned, while characterisation is minimal. It's unsettling how perfunctory the personal scenes now are. Whereas the first was about Rocky and Adrian, the fight almost incidental, by this time the fight was the whole film, the personal conflicts just an inconvenience to be got out of the way. Stallone, writer of all five movies, fails to realise that without these conflicts, the fights themselves lack any form of emotional resonance. What little dialogue this one has is absolutely abominable, all "souls" and "hearts" and Rocky's opponent claiming "He's not human. He is like a piece of iron". Rocky's opponent is Ivan Drago, played by Dolph Lungren after jettisoning all charisma reserves. Drago is the product of steroids and artificial environments. Rocky, meanwhile, travels to Russia to fight him, using natural methods to train. So we see Rocky's nature juxtaposed against Drago's mechanical, clinical training; including Rocky felling a tree as Drago fells a sparring partner. Err is this supposed to be symbolic? I couldn't be sure, it was too subtle.
In the film's favour, Raging Bull's influence does seem to have finally caught up with the franchise, with blood spurts now a semi-regular feature of the bouts. In fact, while the melon crushing sound effects have got so extreme they're laughable, the initial match between Drago and Apollo Creed is the most viscous fight of the series. It's notable that Rocky's opponents are always, by design of the limited filmmaking scope, one-dimensional bad guys. Apollo only got an extra dimension when he crossed over to the "good guys" in Rocky III. Not that such badly drawn characters make a difference when you give a great performance like Mr. T. But Lungren practically falls off the screen in apathy, while Stallone's interest in the film and the character he plays has long since deserted him. Look at the scene where he stares down Drago after his match with Apollo. What is supposed to be hate in Rocky's eyes is merely indifference. The character of Rocky, too, has become a dull preacher, with little or none of the traits that first made him so endearing. It's stunning that the minor classic Rocky could become the minor turkey Rocky IV.
Drago's menace is built up largely through persuasion. Never mind that he's what seems a foot and a half taller than Rocky, we're told that the average boxer can punch an average weight of 700 pounds. Drago manages 2150. So that when one of his punches lands  and land they frequently do  we get to feel it all the more. As the climatic fight draws towards a close, the stereotyped, cold, clinical Russian crowd  none of whom are shown to speak English  suddenly erupt into a chant of "Rocky, Rocky". At the end of the fight, Rocky takes the mike, something he had no interest in for the first film. Here he gets on his soapbox. We learn that the fight has been about two men killing each other, but it's got to be better than 20 million doing the same thing. You know, It's suddenly dawned on me! The whole film was a thinly veiled commentary on the cold war between America and Russia! Thank goodness Sylvester thought to write a speech explaining this element, it might have been lost on me otherwise, as discrete as it was. "If I can change," he bawls, "then you can change. Everybody can change". The crowd erupts! A bloke that's supposed to be Gorbachev gets up and applauds. My God, while a pile of absolute tripe. Such naive, unsophisticated, lowbrow mush that has the audacity to think it's a political satire. Yet the film's strength is that it's so bad, so mindboggling awful that it becomes fantastically silly entertainment. So silly, in fact, that it elevates a terrible film to a 4.