My Thoughts on Rocky VI

Although I already wrote a review on Double the Blog's sister blog Tecmo Blog (the word blog appeared three times in that sentence folks) I have more to say.
Warning: This is not a review of Rocky Balboa, it is a commentary on the movie. Therefore it will contain spoilers so its probably best not to read it until you have seen the movie.

That being said . . .

I’ve now seen Rocky Balboa twice and after weeks of hype by me (and the Large) it has lived up to my expectations. I think it is a fantastic movie. Part of me was hoping for a cheesy, all action no real story flick (a la Rocky III and IV). What Sly gave us was a back to your roots Rocky, a character study that was much like the original. The movie is touching right off the bat, as we realize Rocky no longer had Adrian and his son avoids him. When he goes on the tour of Philly to all the past places we know and love from the original Rocky you can’t help but feel nostalgic. I couldn’t help but feel sad for Rocky, despite the fact that he owns his own restaurant he really does not seem to have much going for him in life except is storied past. From time to time we get a little back story of Mason Dixon, but it is never enough. The movie barely touched on his life other then he is a not well liked champion. He is the least charismatic of any of the Rocky “villains” and it is not Tarver’s fault. There was really nothing in the script that dug deep into the core of Dixon. He doesn’t really come off as a good villain, like Apollo Creed did in the first Rocky. Nor do you hate him, like you did Clubber Lang and Ivan Drago. This would have worked just fine, not everyone can be a hero or villain, if they would have studied his character more.
There are some quirks in the movie that many didn’t seem to like but I thought were kind of funny. Although Steps didn’t seem to have much of a roll in the movie, I thought it was funny how he went from meeting Rocky, to being at the fight press conference to being in Rocky’s corner all in what seemed to be a matter of days. Pauley is still golden; I don’t think his character will ever get old. He shows some rare compassion in this movie, when he agonizes over how he treated Adrian badly when she was alive. Rocky had three real big cheesy speeches in this movie and I liked all of them actually. When he opens up and even starts to cry in the meat locker while talking to Pauley, that makes you realize that life has beaten down this once great champion and you feel for him. It makes you realize why he would want to fight again. I also enjoyed his speech to the boxing commission after they denied him a license, because it made sense. The best speech was the one he gave his whining, sniveling son. I didn’t like Rocky Jr. in this movie, maybe because I have never liked the character or maybe because you weren’t supposed to like him. He tries his best to talk his dad out of the fight because he is sick of living in his shadow. Instead of Rocky taking a step back (like he would have done with Adrian) he rips into his son for acting like a coward and letting life beat him down. Rocky tells him, “Its not about how hard you can hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep getting up”. It’s a good line I thought.
With Rocky somewhat lost in life he decides to try and fight again, of course. People say it’s a joke, Rocky Jr even mentions how Rocky has become a joke to everyone right before he gets the aforementioned speech. One could assume Sly had the same conversation with his real life son, Sage Stallone (who turned down a chance to reprise his roll as Rocky’s son in this movie even though he has no film career what-so-ever). Rocky decides to fight anyway; he doesn’t care what people think. Sly decided to make Rocky VI anyway for his own sake, he didn’t care what people thought. All this makes for an interesting enough movie leading up to the training scene. But once we hear the trainer Duke talking about building “hurting bombs” and “blunt force trauma” well now things are really getting going. Then the classic “Gonna Fly Now” music blares as we enter the famous training montage (too short by the way) and it is officially a Rocky movie. I enjoyed the training montage because the first part of it shows Rocky really struggling with his workouts but he eventually gets better.
The actual fight is an interesting one, unlike any other Rocky fight in terms of presentation. It feels like an actual HBO PPV fight with screen graphics, Jim Lampley, Larry Merchant and Max Kellerman calling the fight (even some Michael Buffer too). During the fight montage we switch from color to black and white shots. The fight begins with Dixon destroying Rocky, making him look as old and week as he probably is. I got depressed, it was sad to see an icon like Rocky looking helpless in the ring. Finally the fight turns in the 2nd round when Dixon breaks his hand punching Rocky and Rocky unleashes a fury of body shots that knock him down. The crowd in the theater actually started to cheer (me included), it was awesome. I know you all know the rest of the fight, but the best scene in the entire movie is in the tenth round when Dixon lands a devastating blow that knocks Rocky back. His vision is blurred, he can barely stand but he recalls the speech he gave to his son (about how hard you can get it) and yells at himself to get up and he does, much to Dixon’s dismay. That was a great scene. In between rounds Rocky Jr yells “The whole world thought this was a joke, I thought this was a joke. No one is laughing now” Same could be said about the movie itself.