Not too bad of a film Sly...should have stopped here

Rating: Null/10 (29 June 2001)

If you have not seen this film (and I don't know how you cold not have) STOP READING HERE!! Now I can get down to business. Plain and simple this movie was made because Sylvester Stallone realized he had a good thing going and certainly you want to milk the cow as long as it's still giving milk. (Cow was obviously dry for Rocky V) And this movie was moving along just fine until our buddy Sly made that fatal error (no pun intended) by allowing a certain character to disappear for good in the series. (AC played by CW) Seriously though, What were you thinking Sly? I have loved the "Rocky" films since I was a wee lad, but it was not until I saw the fourth installment that I finally realized the truth. I was'nt watching because of Rocky Balboa, I was watching because of Apollo Creed. Really. Let's be honest here-his character (played brilliantly AND flawlessly by the great Carl Weathers) is the focal point in every film in the series. One-Without him there is no title fight and the movie would suck. Two-Without him there is no rematch and the movie would suck. Three-Without him Rocky gives up after first fight with Lang and the movie would suck. Four-Without him there is no reason for Rock to fight Russian and movie would suck. And Five-Without him movie does suck!! When you look at the five true series regulars (Stallone, Shire, Young, Weathers and Meredith) the only one without Weathers is by far the worst-big suprise there. So you can see where I am going here. And Stallone has to make Creed's disappearance even more embarassing by making him look, in his fight against Drago, like the only thing that got him in the fight in the first place was a pulse. Come on I know the fight was supposed to be one-sided but you would have sworn Apollo had never fought before in his life. Maybe he could only punch 700 psi but that would still hurt I imagine. On the other side punching 2000 psi would certainly kill anybody-including you Rocky and probably even sooner. The point here is you allowed the wonderful Apollo Creed's exit from the series to be a pretty feeble one Sly, and I will never forgive you for that. Rest of movie-Rock gets mad-Rock trains-Rock fights Russian-Rock wins (whatever) with Russian people cheering for USA (whatever) and everyone goes home happy (again, whatever). So as a fan let me say "I'm sorry Carl-it is obvious you deserved a more glorious demise but that might have made you outshine your buddy Sly once more. And I'm sure both of us realize why his ego never could have let that happen!!