An embarrassing addition to the Rocky series.

Rating: 2/10 (1 January 1999)

This terrible addition to the saga of Rocky Balboa, Philadelphia's "favorite son", is an embarrassment. It is a completely lifeless, emotionless film, that plays like a group of music videos instead of meaningful scenes giving insight into any of the characters. It is not only a far cry from the brilliant original, one of my own personal favorites, but a slap in the face to fans of the first film. Why do we need to see a cold war allegory represented by a boxer from South Philly? This is the basis of the film, which begins with an exhibition bout between Apollo Creed and Russian fighter Ivan Drago. Apollo dies in the ring, so Rocky must set things right with the free world by fighting Drago in Russia. Gee, who will win?
One of the film's most annoying ploys is the casting, by Stallone, of his soon-to-be-wife Briggite Nielsen. In order to make space for her in the cast, Stallone completely underwrites the Drago character, rendering him virtually speechless. This allows the Nielsen character, Drago's wife, to speak for him and have herself a nice amount of screen time. This gimmick is about as artificial to filmmaking as Stallone's marriage to Nielsen turned out to be.
Stallone replaced Bill Conti's familiar and surging music score with a juiced-up, synthesized score I guess he felt was more modern. Huge mistake. 1) The types of films the Rocky series represent are as old as Hollywood itself. Conti's score enhanced this fact and help to make the original rise above the usual rags to riches movies that come out practically every year. 2) The new score is used to make a series of MTV-like videos poorly disguised as human drama.
I guess a movie that runs about 90 minutes and features a 5-minute flashback sequence can't be very fresh or good anyway.