Following his win from Clubber Lane, Rocky’s friendship with Apollo has become one of equal respect.
Soon a new boxer has arrived in the US; the Soviet born Ivan Drago.
Apollo is the first to face him in the ring, which ends in his death.
Rocky, grief stricken vows to face him himself – but can he beat the youthful giant?
Direction
Stallone’s flashy direction has a very distinct 80s vibe to it, but it is all substance, no style. There are odd choices made, with an almost 80s music video vibe to it with all the lighting
The constant pauses on Drago don’t really add anything.
Cast/Characters
Back again are Sylvester Stallone, Talia Shire, Burt Young, and Carl Weathers.
New additions are Dolph Lundgren as Ivan Drago (in his film debut), and Stallone’s then wife (to be) Brigitte Neilsen as Drago’s wife.
Drago’s villain, is more cartoon-ish than his predecessor, and this is with just nine lines of dialogue, most of which feel more comical than ‘intimidating’.
Screenplay/Setting/Themes
Like usual, it picks up directly where #3 left off, with Rocky’s triumph over Clubber Lane. We then get some genuinely tender moments between Rocky and Adrian who are still going strong after nine years of marriage (and nine years since the first movie).
There is also some nice moments between Rocky and Apollo, who discuss their ‘getting older’ and the ‘new kid on the block’ Drago.
We then are subject to the same story that we have had previously; Rocky discovers a new opponent (Drago), he does his training montage, goes through a traumatic event (Apollo dies) gets advice from a mentor type (this time it is Duke) – and then has the fight with the opponent.
All of these are just okay this time, as it’s getting a tad redundant by this stage.
The many training montages, as well as Rocky’s drive (which had many flashbacks that felt like a television episode clip show) were clearly added to pad the run time. But even at an anemic 87 minutes, the film still dragged.
The Russia location (that clearly wasn’t Russia) added to the America v Russia theme (which is still as fractured today as it was 40 years ago).
Once again we get a Hollywood ending, gone are the days of the non conventional ending where the hero loses that the first film excelled in.
And what the f*** was with Paulie and his Robot?
Score/Soundtrack
As mentioned earlier, this feels like more of an Official Music Video for songs like ‘Livin in America’ by James Brown (who has a cameo at the Apollo/Drago fight), There’s no way out (while Rocky has his ‘deep thought drive’) and Eye of the Tiger again.
One up I did like was the score that played during some of Drago’s moments. It had a “Soviet” feel to it, which worked well.
Overall
The strong narrative that the previous films had feels long ago now, and this film does ruin what was before it.
Not a bad film by any means, there are still solid action scenes (especially in the Apollo/Drago & Rocky/Drago fights), but the narrative has a ‘seen it all before’ feel to it, and is the poorest in the franchise so far.
3/5
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