Rocky Hits His Peak!

Rating: 7/10 (26 November 2012)

Rocky 4 is generally a very good action film. Agreed: the plot is fairly simple. Agreed: the music is very 80s. Agreed: the characters don't develop much, except Rocky. Agreed: Stalone much have been very tired and out of ideas when he wrote a robot into the script (silly idea). But lets be frank: Rocky 4 is really good fun. There's a reason it grossed world-wide 10 times as much money as it took to make, i.e. over twice as much gross as Rocky 3. That's because most people seemed to really enjoy it. Why is that then? What can you expect from it?
It's 90 minutes of excitement, pretty much from beginning to end. And it builds. By the time you know Rocky is going to fight the Russian, you just cannot wait to watch it. The training scenes, the guest appearance from 'the Godfather of Soul' and the montage are all memorable. But without question it's the fight scene that takes centre stage. We have here, in Rocky 4, one of the best fight scenes in any action movie ever made. It doesn't get much better than this. Of course, all the actors hold their own very well, as we've come to expect of the Rocky movie stars. And the film is a very convincing show of determination and suspense.
We know that Rocky is determined. It's one of the main themes of these films. But I don't think you'll ever know how determined the man is until you watch this. It's a classic action flick and worthy of more than 6.3. All things considered, it has to be an 8.