I've watched it more times than any human should...

Rating: 8/10 (23 October 2003)

Let me first preface my history with this movie. The fascination for the Rocky series has been present since childhood. Some of my earliest memories include seeing this movie and seeing Tyson knock out Spinks. Boxing has always been a passion. Movies have always been a passion. Thus, the Rocky series has always held a special place on my list of favorite movies (Rocky V excluded, but that's an entirely different topic).
If you had just seen the original for the first time, Rocky IV will mean nothing to you. It will let you down. This movie should be viewed in the context of its time, not of its origin. The one-time street bum is now seen with a beautiful house and a Lamborghini. He's proven his status of being one of the great champs of all time. Clearly this movie will add nothing to the series. Or will it?
First, let me comment on the villain. Ivan Drago is basically a portrait of character actor Dolph Lundgren. This time, the gigantic Scandinavian is portraying the great Russian hope. The great stereotypes of the cold war are all in full effect as Drago is a genetically engineered, roided-up, indestructible communist threat. First, he kills one American icon, Apollo Creed (portrayed again by Carl Weathers), with nothing but his fists. He then sets his sights on the great American underdog, Rocky Balboa. Of course, to go along with the whole Cold War feel, Rocky overcomes the odds to finish the Russian, win the match, and convince every Soviet, including the Soviet Premiere, that we're all the same and should live and love one another. It's corny. It's predictable. It's classic Reagan-era pro-American propaganda. And for this, we thank Stallone.
Next, let me comment on the characters of the movie. This movie, like the second and third installment, is written and directed by Stallone himself. The movie continues, like the others, by continuing off the prior installment. However, the characters have been developed to death. Everyone knows Rocky. Everyone knows Adrian. Everyone knows Paulie. Everyone who returns has been developed. Thus, the first forty minutes of the movie is spent developing four main characters, three of which are Russian. The fourth, however, is another great product of the 1980s. Early in the movie, the Balboa family is celebrating Paulie's birthday. Thus, like every rich family in America in the 1980s, the only respectable birthday gift for a grumpy, old, single male is a robot: a walking, talking, subservient robot. Now, Stallone realized in writing this movie having a robot replace a hardworking maid would not be a prudent thing to do after writing in the movie. Clearly, the only appropriate solution to this is to create romantic tension between Paulie and the robot. Furthermore, when Rocky, Paulie, and later Adrian go to Siberia to train, the most reasonable option for babysitter is the robot. Quite clearly, the robot was inspired greatly by Rosie of the Jetsons and added the character development that would have been lacking in this movie otherwise.
As mentioned, this movie was the third of the institution to be directed by Stallone himself. In writing this movie, he could only come up with 35 minutes of dialog. Add on the typical 20 minutes of boxing, and you have a 55 minute movie. Now, this movie runs 91 minutes. Take out about 2 minutes for credits, and you are left with 33 minutes to fill. Thus, the best action to take was to exploit possibly the most distinctive tradition of the Rocky series: the montage. This one, however, threw away the instrumentals because it was the 1980s, and the kids didnâ?Tt want instrumentals. The kids wanted really bad rock and roll. So Stallone got on the phone with his good buddies Survivo, which wrote the famous song, Eye of the Tiger, and asked them and some of their equally untalented buddies to write approximately 33 minutes worth of bad music. The music was produced, and we were given numerous montages. The first notable montages are the overblown entrance of Apollo Creed prior to facing Drago. James Brown gives a pre-jail yet fully past-prime performance to a brilliantly theatrical descent from above by Creed. His following death is very rich in religious symbolism, as he is put to death by an evil force for the sins of the United States. The second montage of note is Stallone driving after Creedâ?Ts death, reminiscing on the past. This montage is basically face-shots of Stallone in his Lamborghini and rehashed footage from the series up to this point. The final notable montage is the training montage, which easily takes up much of the unaccounted for 23 minutes or so of the film. The montage was a strong clich of films of the eighties, and this training sequence provided the standard by which all montages are judged to this day. The beauty and excess of Rocky training in the rugged environment Soviet Union in contrast with Drago training in a very 1980s computer enriched, yet completely fictitious and nonsensical, environment is clearly one of the most memorable twenty-plus minutes of film today.
It is practically a crime to not have seen this movie, because it stood for everything the people of a confused and thoughtless people of the decade believed in: Robots will rule the world, Communism will always be a threat, and that by setting their standards low enough, they could never be disappointed. Its a piece of history. It should be shown to children in school.