The least of the Rocky series so far, but it's still fun to watch

Rating: 6/10 (3 November 2016)

Although it isn't as iconic or as well made as the films which preceded it, ROCKY IV is still an entertaining film in the long-running franchise, a memorable Cold War encounter that tries to do something a little different than what's come before. Essentially it's the US vs. Russia conflict reduced to two boxers at the top of their game duking it out in the ring, and it has an air of '80s cheesiness about it that the previous sequel avoided: we could have done without the talking robot stuff, and the soundtrack just isn't memorable like in the films that came before. This ROCKY sequel is more about making bucks at the box office: it's bigger, slicker, more explosive, yes, but it lacks the gritty realism that the first two films contained. Halfway through the film there's a ten minute flashback sequence to the earlier movies that's been put in there for the fans alone.
Still, there's stuff that makes this film special anyway. Rocky's relationship with his family is as interesting as ever, and Paulie has a little more characterisation than in ROCKY III, even if he is still a background character. The character arcs are engaging, as we witness Apollo Creed come to the end of his long-running arc and Rocky himself battling fear for the first time in his life. Needless to say, the actors are fine: Stallone, Shire, Young and Weathers fit into their roles like a glove and don't let us down, and Tony Burton, Apollo's trainer, steps up to the plate with some heartening scenes that might indicate he's the new Mickey. The Russian villains are ice-cold: Brigitte Nielsen's here, just before she swapped to play the heroine in Stallone's COBRA, and Dolph Lundgren appears in his breakout turn as the robotic Russian boxer. He makes far more of an impact here than he did in his blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance as a henchman in A VIEW TO A KILL.
Things I liked especially here were the training sequences, which swap locations to the icy Siberian wastes and feel fresh and inventive as a result, and the extended Rocky vs. Drago climax, which is one of the most exciting yet. The film as a whole has left me raring to see the next sequel.