Rocky IV (1985): The Winner and Still Champ

Rating: 9/10 (4 January 2018)

Rocky IV (1985) is an American sports drama film starring Sylvester Stallone, Talia Shire, Burt Young, Carl Weathers, Brigitte Nielsen, and Dolph Lundgren. The film is written by and directed by Sylvester Stallone.
ROCKY IV was the first and only film in the Rocky franchise not to have the classic side-scrolling screen intro. Instead, the intro has two boxing gloves, one representing the USA and the other representing the USSR (SOVIET UNION). Both gloves smash into each other and explode while Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger" is playing.
The film starts up with the "flashback" scene that shows the events from the end of the previous installment in the franchise ROCKY III (1982). It shows the Heavyweight Championship Rematch Title Fight between southpaw Rocky Balboa and the reigning Heavyweight Champion of the World James "Clubber" Lang. Rocky ends up KO'ing Clubber in the 3rd round. Rocky is crowned for the second and final time the NEW HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION OF THE WORLD. Rocky owes Creed a favor and they spar each other in Mickey's gym.
After the flashback of ROCKY III, we are now ready to dive into the beginning of ROCKY IV. The national amateur boxing champion of the USSR Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren) along with his gold medal olympic swimming wife Ludmilla (Brigitte Nielsen) arrive from the USSR and come to the USA to challenge the Heavyweight Champion of the World Rocky "The Italian Stallion" Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) to a boxing match. However, Rocky's former rival, former Heavyweight Champion of the World, and a long-time friend Apollo "The Master of Disaster" Creed (Carl Weathers) challenges Drago to an exhibition bout instead. Rocky is hesitant due to the fact that Apollo Creed has been retired for over five years. Apollo, as cocky as he was in the original ROCKY, believes he can beat this "chump" easy. The fight takes place in California and is billed "SUPERMAN vs. SUPERHYPE". Ivan Drago fights Apollo Creed. The first round has Drago relentlessly beating Creed to a pulp. In the second round, Apollo is nearly destroyed when Tony "Duke" Evers (Tony Burton) encourages Rocky to throw in the towel and stop the fight. With the final blow, Drago brutally murders Apollo Creed in the ring.
This fight causes much controversy and negative attention towards Ivan Drago.
Rocky decides to fight the 2,000 PSI fighter in the ring in Moscow, Russia, USSR to avenge Apollo's death. The fight is set December 25th. Rocky will make no money whatsoever from this fight as to him it is not about the money. Rocky has to temporary give up his title in order to fight Drago due to the fact that the Boxing Commission does not approve of this fight because of Apollo's death.
Rocky goes to train in Russia, where his wife, Adrian (Talia Shire), his friend and Adrian's sister Paulie (Burt Young), and Tony join him. Rocky relentlessly trains for this fight. He trains the hardest he has ever in his life, even more than his fight against Clubber Lang.
The fight takes place. The athletes go back and forth. The fight is a very close one. It is the fifteenth round. Rocky knocks Drago down and wins the fight. There is overjoy for Rocky Balboa. He gives a speech on changing stating that everyone can change. The movie ends with Rocky waving the American flag in the air and rejoicing over the result of the fight.
ROCKY IV, at 91 minutes, is the shortest film in the whole franchise, and it shows that a lot. The pacing feels a little bit rushed. Not a terrible thing though. I just wished the film was a little bit longer.
ROCKY IV marks Stallone's third film that he directed n the series after ROCKY II (1979), and ROCKY III (1982). Sylvester Stallone would go on to direct ROCKY BALBOA (2006).
ROCKY IV was made on a budget of $30,000,000. The film grossed $300,000,000, making it the most successful film in the entire franchise and the highest grossing boxing film of all-time.
ROCKY IV features John Cafferty's "Hearts On Fire" which is a huge hit song. Bill Conti, who composed the music for ROCKY, ROCKY II, and ROCKY III, could not return to compose the music for ROCKY IV due to the fact that he was too busy working on the music for THE KARATE KID (1984) and The Karate Kid Part II (1986). Sylvester Stallone hired Vince DiCola to compose the music for the film. Vince DiCola won a Razzie Award for Worst Film Score. However, I think that that is absolute crap considering how great the film score is and how much popularity his score for the film has had. I still like Bill Conti's score more however. You do see brief notes of Bill Conti's score in the film but not much.
ROCKY IV, while lacking a lot of plot and being more a revenge story than an underdog story that the first 3 movies were, ROCKY IV is still an incredibly enjoyable film and just as good as ROCKY III in some ways.
9/10