I guess this one all depends on what you expect from a Rocky movie. For most people watching this, they will know what to expect and they won’t be disappointed. Those who don’t like the kind of movie this is simply won’t seek it out. Me, I just expect it to be watchable. I’m guessing I’ve seen the other sequels to the original (half-assed review, don’t bother clicking, lol) at some point, my brother and step-dad I’m sure must’ve put them on at some point when I had less control over the TV But I don’t remember them. The original, though, is fairly fresh in my memory, and I was surprised by how much I got out of it despite it being, yuck, a sports movie. And this one is even better.

Quite honestly, if it weren’t such a strong year for Oscar hopefuls, in fact, even despite it being a strong year, I still wanna say that this one is far more deserving of the many nominations the original got in its time (but don’t think me crazy, I know it’s not gonna happen). Sylvester Stallone has done so much more with this movie than he needed to. Even the set-up to the big fight has something to say. The movie is still incredibly cheesy and clichéd … but it comes with so much heart, it’s so much the way you just wish life could be … I almost wanna compare it to the way I first felt about Spy Kids 3, which coincidentally Stallone starred in, but I don’t wanna put people off. It just feels so right.

Even relative newcomer Geraldine Hughes seems to be in on it, holding her own a hundred times better than you’d expect from a newcomer to such a long-running series, alongside Stallone, Burt Young, and the archive footage of Talia Shire … it really feels like she’s been part of the whole Rocky family since day one. Bill Conti’s score, as expected, pretty much retreads the original themes, but again, somehow it’s never quite as annoying as it should be (seriously, you have been warned: not 5 minutes goes by without “Gonna Fly Now” appearing in some form). Then, I love Bill Conti’s music, I’m probably biased.

Really, I can’t say enough how impressed I was with this movie. It plays by its own rules and basically says to its audience all the way through, if you don’t like the way we’re doing this, then leave. It knows who its audience is – in the end credits, you see what I assume is fan footage of people recreating the iconic shot of Rocky in the first movie ascending those steps in the “Gonna Fly Now” montage (which is also re-done in this installment).

I’m gonna slightly digress here, so I apologise in advance … People who know me know how I feel about sport and as a result sports movies. I can’t separate sports violence from real violence the same way most people including myself can separate videogame and movie violence from real violence. When politicians go after videogames and movies as a cause of violence in the real world, it aggravates me even more than it does the average intelligent person ‘cos all I can think is, why is sport – where real blood is often spilled (and, in boxing in particular, real punches are thrown by default) – not their first port of call? So when it comes to sporting movies, generally, I find it hard to sympathise with any character putting themselves in danger, nurturing hate for an imaginary enemy, working themselves into a frenzy, for what amounts to mere entertainment – Friday Night Lights is the first title that comes to mind, a movie that I only got through by ultimately finding it simply hilarious how little I cared about those guys’ tears. But now and then, a sports movie can still suck me in and be about something I can understand, and this is one of those rare instances. Even if you think you won’t like it, treat the old man in your life and take him to see it … even if he happens to be somewhere inside you. Boy do I have an old man in me, lol … and he really got this movie.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 9th, 2007 at 3:21 am in 4 hearts, Movie Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.