down for the count

Rating: 2/10 (30 December 2010)

When it comes to boxing films, there's 'Raging Bull' and then there's just plain bull. The fifth chapter in the interminable saga of America's favorite pugilist presents a kinder, gentler Rocky Balboa, down but hardly out after his flag-waving triumph against the Soviets in 'Rocky IV'. The new film was meant to be a return to roots, for both Stallone and his alter ago, but humility was never Rocky's strongest virtue, and his fall from grace barely registers as an inconvenience (notice how Rocky himself is innocent in his own downfall, and how the adulation of his fans doesn't waver, before or afterward). Even the suggested brain damage (is this something new?) never quite becomes an issue; it certainly doesn't stop him from beating the crap out of his rogue protégé in the climactic fist fight, actually more a street brawl than a boxing contest. Elsewhere Stallone's screenplay favors domestic soap opera over fisticuffs, with some predictably sloppy father/son bonding trauma lending it all the conviction of a Hallmark greeting card. It may be hard to believe, but the film is even more cheap and sloppy than its predecessors, if such a thing is even possible.