Not bad. Makes me want to see I, II, III and IV.

Rating: Null/10 (31 December 2002)

Rocky Balboa has to retire from boxing because of brain damage from too many blows to the head. Unfortunately, the man given the responsibility of handling Rocky's money has taken it all for himself. This means Rocky, his wife and his son must move back to the old neighborhood. Rocky is not happy about that, but his wife frequently reminds him that lots of people live the way they do now and it's nothing to be ashamed of. Rocky's son starts at a tough school that his father attended, and he gets beat up by bullies. The boy wants to learn to box like his father, but the boy's mother doesn't want him to fight. Meanwhile, Rocky's only way to contend for a title is to manage an up-and-coming boxer named Tommy Gunn. Rocky spends so much time with Gunn that his son feels ignored. Sleazy promoter George Washington Duke sees the potential in Gunn and wants to take over the man's career. This would have made a good tv-movie, but it doesn't seem like it lives up to what I've heard about the popular series of films. This is my first 'Rocky' movie, but the earlier films may have been better. Most of the time Sylvester Stallone sounds like he is doing a comic impression of himself, though this could be because of the character's brain damage. He sounds perfectly normal, though, in the scene where he takes his son to school for the first time. The standout performance is given by Burgess Meredith in flashbacks, though these are probably from the earlier movies.