Rocky Balboa
Since the passing of his beloved wife Adrian (played in flashbacks by Talia Shire) a couple years ago after a long bout with a disease, the former two-time boxing champ, Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) has enjoyed a quiet and laid back existence. He runs a local Itallian restaurant named after his late wife, where he entertains the guests with the stories of his glory days, and spends most of the time reminiscing about the past with brother-in-law Paulie (Burt Young) and trying to connect with his emotionally distant adult son (Milo Ventimiglia). After years of relative obscurity, Balboa is thrust back into the limelight when a computer simulated match up on ESPN concludes that Rocky would win in a fight against the current heavyweight champ, Mason "The Line" Dixon (real life boxer Antonio Tarver making his acting debut). Mason has been having some image problems, and his managers think that a charity match in Vegas with Balboa would be a great boost to his career. As for Rocky himself, he finds he still has some fight left within him, despite those around him thinking that he's crazy for going back into the ring, due to his age.
Apparently, Stallone was not happy with the way 1990's Rocky V turned out, so he wrote the screenplay for Rocky Balboa to give his character the farewell that he felt he deserved. Stallone not only writes and stars, but he directed this entry as well. It's a pretty bold move to resurrect a character who has not appeared on the big screen for 16 years, and with the wrong approach, it could have made the entire film come across as a desperate attempt to squeeze one last bit of juice out of the story. Fortunately, you can tell that Stallone feels too attached to his own creation to do that. Rocky Balboa comes across as a respectful continuation and closing to the story that he stared 30 years ago. This time, the emphasis is not so much on the fighting, but on Rocky himself. With the character supposed to be nearing 60, it adds a new level to the story as he deals with age, how others see him, and how he sees himself in his later years. The movie kind of acts as a time capsule as Rocky looks back on his life over the years, and tries to figure out where he should be going. Longtime fans will most likely enjoy this approach, and view it as a quiet reflection on the series as a whole. Unfortunately, there is just too little to offer those who have not embraced the series as a whole. The movie spends too much time reminiscing, and not enough time moving the story forward. At one point early in the film, Paulie tells Rocky that he's stuck in the past. The same could be said of this movie, which seems to be designed strictly for fans and for fans only. I can understand that Stallone obviously has a deep personal attachment to the story and the characters, but I think he makes a mistake by aiming for too narrow of an audience with this story. Those who have not followed the story from the beginning, or lost interest along the way, will feel like they're missing something.
Because the movie is so bent on pleasing only the fans, the film itself suffers in other areas. The new characters who are introduced in this installment are given second-hand treatment, and generally come across as shallow and underwritten. One of the main subplots in the film is Rocky's budding friendship with a lonely bar waitress and single mother named Marie (Geraldine Hughes) who is struggling to raise her troubled son Steps (James Francis Kelly III). Despite the fact that Rocky and Marie apparently had a chance meeting once when Marie was just a little girl, their relationship never truly connects with the audience, nor does it ever become clear as to why Rocky becomes so attached to her. When Marie asks him why he's so nice to her in one scene, I found myself asking the exact same thing. Marie comes across as being underwritten, and as a stand-in for Adrian during the final fight, as she sits in the audience, wrings her hands together nervously when Rocky is taking a beating, and cheers him on when he's doing well. Her son Steps is even worse, and seems to serve no purpose whatsoever to the story, as the only scene where he gets to share any real dialogue with Rocky is when they're in a city pound picking out a dog. He could have easily been written out of most of the script, and nothing in the movie would have changed at all. There's also a subplot concerning Rocky and the strained relationship with his son, and how the son feels as if he is living in his father's shadow even as an adult. While this could have added some much needed drama to the proceedings, the movie handles this plot very haphazardly, and seems to forget completely about it for most of the movie. When it finally comes time for Rocky and his son to confront each other, the scene doesn't have quite the impact that it should, because it's mainly been ignored up to this point.
None of this will matter much to the long time fans, who will probably just be thrilled to see these classic characters one last time. And indeed, it is certainly nice to see some of them again. Stallone is as likeable as he's ever been in his signature role, and slips immediately back into form. Yeah, Rocky spends a bit too much time philosophizing about life and giving lectures to different people about not giving up and pursuing your dreams, but Stallone's performance has that same rugged tough guy with a not-so secret soft spot that has made the character endure for so long, making him impossible to hate. Series regular Burt Young as Paulie gets a couple good scenes as well, but his character seems strangely unfulfilled, almost as there was supposed to be more to his character but it got left on the editing room floor. I personally would have liked to see a couple more of the old characters return myself. I mean, would it have killed them to give a cameo to Mr. T? They give a cameo to Mike Tyson in this movie, so I say why not? Of the new characters, Geraldine Hughes comes across the best as Marie, even if her character is a bit underdeveloped. She has a likeable screen presence and makes the most out of her limited role. As Rocky's main rival, Antonio Tarver is an intimidating presence, but just like everyone else, he's given very little to do. The movie spends so little time establishing him as a character, he easily becomes the most forgettable rival to ever step in the ring with the Itallian Stallion.
Much like the character himself in this film, Rocky Balboa is a movie that's stuck in the past. It's great at playing up the nostalgia for the fans and in giving a proper send off for its main character, but everything else fails to click. Even the climactic boxing match is strangely uneffective, as the movie shows it mainly at a distance, so that we feel like we're watching the fight on a TV set, instead of being right there in the action. It's really too bad, because I actually felt a little pumped during the movie's early moments. Though I've never been a rabid Rocky fan, when the opening notes of Bill Conti's memorable instrumental theme started playing on the theater speakers, I admit I started to get a little excited. That excitement quickly faded when I realized the movie was simply meant to be a love letter to the fans. There's nothing wrong with that, I guess, and Rocky Balboa is certainly not a bad movie. It just doesn't do much more than preach to an already established choir.
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