Rocky Balboa

So if you're a fan of my blog, even though I've never out right said it, you may notice that I just don't review that many sports movies. I think I have thrown in a couple here and there, but usually, I don't really get out and see sports movies. I mean a lot of them have the same premise and a lot of them have the same ending. And honestly, Rocky Balboa is not different.

It also might surprise you to know that I haven't seen any of the Rocky movies prior to this one. I was heading out to Creed and my friend and I had some time to kill, so we thought we'd watch the most recent Rocky movie to get a little bit of context for Creed. I'll get to my review of Creed in my next post.

Rocky Balboa takes place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where Rocky Balboa (played by Sylvester Stallone) is the local hero from his accomplishments in the world of boxing and the events of the previous films.

 The first act of this movie honestly is just Rocky going about his usual daily stuff. He courts a woman from the area (played by Geraldine Hughes), as well as trying to connect with his son (played by Milo Ventimigla).

Honestly, the first part of this movie kind of drags.

Its not that its necessarily bad, it just takes a while for Rocky to finally come to the conclusion that he's not totally ready for retirement and maybe he should have one more go in the ring of boxing before he settles into retirement forever.

I think I might have enjoyed the first part of this movie a little bit more if I had watched the first few movies as a lot of it centers around Rocky focusing on his past, whether its his boxing career, or the fact that he misses his wife who died of cancer since the last film.

Again, its not bad, without any context though it does drag a little bit.

The most interesting part comes when a simulated boxing match is shown on TV. This simulation pits Rocky up against the current heavy weight boxing champion, Mason "the Line" Dixon (played by Antonio Tarver). The weird thing is, I remember hearing about the story of this movie when it came out and thought it was ridiculous. I mean a simulation, ESPN can be bad at times but they're not THAT bad.

But regardless of how silly of a way it comes up, the boxing world begins questioning Rocky's reputation. They question whether or not he was actually as good as people remember him. On top of that, Dixon is having a little bit of a difficulty with his reputation and his legacy that he's thinking he will leave behind as he's growing old.

The main point of this movie is about legacy. Both of these guys have an inner need to restore their legacy and feel a sense of accomplishment.

Now you may ask, how in god's name does Rocky have a sense of being incomplete when he's had 5 movies already of kicking ass, ending the Cold War and whatever else happened in those movies (I get the feeling I will get to a couple of them in the next few days).

But regardless of whether or not it makes sense, after being challenged by Dixon to an exhibition match, Rocky decides he's going to train for one last fight before he retires for good.

The movie of course is pretty formulaic.

Rocky gets challenged to a fight, he trains for the fight, he goes into the fight. The rest is just character development and arcs of the different characters and Rocky.

Of course where this one is different is that Rocky has been out of the game for about 20 years. He has a son who has some difficulty dealing with being the son of the famous Rocky Balboa. And of course Sylvester Stallone looks like a wrinkled grape. I'll give it, a very muscular and incredibly in shape wrinkled grape, but a wrinkled grape nonetheless.

And when it comes to the fight, I mean its a Rocky movie. The stakes are always high, and if you're a sucker for boxing movies like I am, you'll be on the edge of your seat with every hit and movement.

The cool thing about this movie, is that when it came to the fight between Rocky and Dixon, it was very much filmed like a real boxing match would be filmed on TV.

Its felt very much like I was watching a pay per view of the fight between Mason Dixon and Rocky Balboa. Its a little bit different of a style than Creed does almost 10 years later and I have no idea what these fights are like in the older movies but I thought it was a different way of shooting the film. And for the most part, I liked it. From the two Rocky franchise movies I've seen, the fights are just as formulaic as the movie. They show the first two or three rounds, then they go into a montage of the two going back and forth at one another, and the final rounds get a little bit more attention.

Overall, its a good fight. I don't know if the ESPN filming of it is going to be to everyone's liking, but talking as someone with no experience of the earlier Rocky movies, I thought it was good. I thought Creed was better, but I thought this one was okay.

I have to say as far as a rival goes, Mason "The Line" Dixon is an okay rival for Rocky. I haven't even seen the other movies and I know that he's probably not the best. In fact in many ways he's probably really boring. But I did think they did an okay job getting a feel for who this character was why it was just as important for him to win this fight than it was for Rocky. However, its okay that Dixon's story isn't exactly the greatest because he's the foil, he's the antagonist or the rival for Rocky and in the end, as sympathetic as we might be for Dixon, we want Rocky to win.

As far as other relationships go, I thought they were okay in this movie. I like Milo Ventimigla and I thought he did a good job as Rocky's son. Again, a lot of this movie is about legacy and that's not just how Rocky sees himself, but how his son sees him, and how the community sees him.

I did think the relationship he had with Geraldine Hughes was alright. It was a little random at times and it kind of seemed like they just needed a romantic interest like I assume his wife was in the previous movies.

The relationship though that I'm mostly interested in is his relationship with his brother in law, Pauley.

I mean the relationship itself is pretty good as Rocky is preoccupied with the past and Pauley instead wants to forget about the past as it is too painful. That's not so much what I'm interested in.

I have a theory about Pauley. And a lot of this is based off of nothing because like I've said multiple times. I have not seen the earlier Rocky movies. I don't know the exact nature of Pauley and Rocky's relationship. All I know is that he's been in all the previous Rocky movies and he's probably the most recognizable part of Rocky's past in this movie.

My theory is that Pauley is dead in this movie.

I noticed it in the first hour of the movie as the only times we see Pauley is when he's alone with Rocky. There's nobody else around and its just Pauley and Rocky talking about the past. There's a scene where he's standing in the headlights of the car looking very angelic. Nobody else seems to interact with Pauley throughout the entire movie (with the exception of one scene, and that could be explained easily). Rocky is the only one who talks to Pauley.

In one of the first scenes, Rocky is at the cemetery, presumingly visiting the grave of his wife. But Pauley's in the background just chillin with Rocky. Then at the end, after the fight, after Rocky has gotten all the doubts and regrets of his past out, he revisits that cemetery and Paulie is nowhere to be seen. In fact he's not in the movie after that fight. Furthermore, in Creed, (spoiler alert?) Pauley is dead and his tombstone is right next to Adrienes. I don't think its beyond belief that Pauley is a ghost or a figment of Rocky's sub conscious symbolizing his desire to have one last chance to prove himself. When Pauley tells him right before the fight to leave everything on that boxing ring, he's basically telling him to let the lay the last bit of his past to rest and be at peace with his life, even after everything that made him famous and made his life meaningful has gone or has passed away.

Again, this is just a theory based off the initial thought that Pauley was in fact dead throughout this entire movie, and then when the people I watched it with told me he wasn't, the theory just kind of snowballed and again, with the exception of one scene that can easily be explained or even ignored, I think the theory holds up pretty well.

Maybe I'll do another post on this theory later but for now, I'll let you all sit with that. Let me know what you think.

The last thing I'll talk about is Rocky himself. I've never been a huge fan of Stallone. I've seen the Expendables and while I enjoy those movies for the fact that they're just turn your brain off action films with a lot of 80s action heroes in them, they're not a great representation of Stallone's acting abilities. Stallone has never, to me, seemed like a great actor.

But watching this movie and Creed back to back, I really have to say that Stallone does have some talent. Its something I never thought I'd say but I feel for the character because of Stallone's acting.

Now maybe its because this franchise was Stallone's ticket to stardom and everything he owes in his career is because of this franchise, but he just brings it in this film. And I'll get to his performance in Creed.

Now that being said, he's still a mumbling Italian giant and even his dialogue isn't the most eloquent dialogue you can muster up.

But that's probably the charm of the character. Rocky is not the most intelligent man in the universe and he's not the most well read. But he's the every day man who doesn't have those eloquent speeches, but still manages to say something meaningful.

On top of that, you have to give props to Stallone for staying in such good shape over the years. Again, he looks like a wrinkled grape, but I definitely would not want to get in the ring with this guy.

Overall, out of the two Rocky franchise movies I've seen, its not my favorite, but that's because the other one is Creed. Rocky Balboa is much different story. Apparently Stallone used it as a way of telling his own tale of his struggles in his career and I'm sure there are great parallels that I appreciate because I do love it when people are passionate about what they do, especially when its apparent in their work. This was a passion project.

I don't know if it holds up to the other films but for now I'll say this movie was entertaining, if not for just going through the movie asking the question, is Pauley dead or alive?

But what do you think of Rocky Balboa? Comment and Discuss below. You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 and you can send me your requests for future reviews I should do on this blog. If you follow me on twitter you can get updates on future movie news and reviews as well as live film tweets when I get the chance.

I'll leave you with this. Because I'm doing Creed next, here's the trailer for that movie so you can get a taste of what the movie is like. Enjoy!