Idiotic Flag Waving at its worst

Rating: 1/10 (15 December 2001)

Sylvester Stallone has done his fair share of ridiculous movies but this one takes the cake. The fact that it was shot during the cold war isn't really a valid excuse for the horribly stereotyped Russians. The entire Russian population seems to consist of people totally devoid of emotion with their sole reason for existence being to humiliate Americans. Even the country itself is stereotyped in that 80's American way where every shot inside the Soviet Union has to be in mid winter. Naturally Mister Balboa and his crew arrive there during a snow storm.
The fight scenes are as badly cliched as the the rest of the movie. I'm not too interested in boxing but even I know that punches don't sound like that, and no one gets hit as heavily and over such a long period of time as Dolph and Sly get during their bout and actually live. Of course the fight follows the "our hero gets badly beaten but then rises to beat the baddie and win over the crowd" cliche. No excuses for giving away the ending here, someone with the IQ of Rambo could see this one coming.
Dolph Lundgren is meant to play the robotic Russian fighting machine and as such has to play no emotion except to follow his programmed routine of hate for his enemies. This suits his acting abilities well. He does get one of the best lines in the movie, and virtually his only line when he introduces himself to Rocky in the ring with "I must break you!"
The little plot that the movie has is padded out with sequences of bad 80's music that play like music videos. The movie is quite laughable in some places but the constant flag waving does get a bit much so this movie is not even in the "so bad it's funny" category. On top of that there's Sylvester's speech in the end where he brings out the American inside every Russian that's truly stomach turning.
0 out of 10