Rocky Balboa

2006 sequel to a sequel to a sequel to a sequel to a sequel to an original good movie

Rating: 11/20

Plot: The titular former heavyweight champion of the world is adjusting to a new life as a retired athlete whose fame has withered away, a restaurant owner who owns a burgundy jacket, and, sadly, a widower. That's right. They'll killed off Adrian, probably because of some contract dispute with Talia Shire. There's a fire burning (boynin' as Mickey would have said) inside Rocky, and he longs for one last chance in the ring even though he's in his 90s and can't find those ridiculous red, white, and blue shorts still drenched with his buddy Apollo's junk sweat. The new champion, a cocky and unchallenged Mason Dixon (seriously?), becomes disturbed when ESPN boxing analysts suggest that Rocky was a better fighter with a virtual match between the two proving them right. Rocky agrees to an exhibition match. Cue theme music/workout montage!

The best thing about this movie is that it isn't the last movie. This is the first one of these sequels where we don't have to watch a big chunk of the previous movie, presumably because they were all embarrassed by Rocky V. "What? This is how we ended it?" This makes for a more fitting end for our character (though a part of me was hoping this would end in his death) but it really feels like they've dug up a dead horse so that they could beat on it. Like a pinata, hoping that candy or maybe even money will come out. Everything that reminds me of the other movies feels tired, and everything that is different isn't really different. For example, Adrian's gone, but this movie still manages to have her stink all over it. His restaurant's got pictures of her all over the place, and there's a sickening scene where Rocky returns to his old crib and says "I remember when she was standing there" which of course makes an Adrian ghost appear. In the years that have passed since the last movie, Paulie's become a complete cartoon. My favorite Paulie moment is when he's rambling, "I got a watch! I got two watches!" I wasn't sure if that was comedy or tragedy so I laughed and cried at the same time. Another nice Paulie moment:

Paulie: Are you made because your wife left you?
Rocky: She didn't leave me. She died.
(Blubbery weeping)

Mason "The Line" Dixon (seriously, they really went with this?) has the boxing chops, but doesn't have nearly the personality of any of Rocky's other opponents, even Tommy Morrison in that last pitiful movie. There's the obligatory training montage where you get to see Rocky do all the stuff that he did in the previous movies when he was much younger. He even runs up those steps, this time with a dog. Here, it just seems like an excuse to show off how good Stallone thinks he looks as a guy in his 60s. Speaking of that, something artificial has to be going on there, right? And speaking of artificial, I didn't buy the father/son stuff in this. And where was Rocky's son anyway? You're telling me that they could get Skip Bayless in this, but Stallone's son was too busy? And holy cannibalism! There's Mike Tyson's tattoo! Iron Mike gets to say, "You got that midget with you right there!" which makes me wonder why the heck anybody would let Tyson improvise in a movie. And once you've thrown Mike Tyson talking about midgets in a movie, you have nowhere to go but down, so the boxing match that takes place afterward is anti-climactic. I'm not a boxing expert, but I'm pretty sure this fight would have been stopped in the 2nd. This lays the theme on so thick that the whole thing seems like an over-icing'ed cake collapsing under its own weight. It's like a very small cake, a heaping layer of Adrian, a layer of father/son, and at least five layers of redemption.

My two favorite things about this movie: Rocky's new quirk--a "How ya doin?" long after a "How ya doin?" is appropriate in a conversation. He does it twice. And the second is Angela Boyd's performance as "crazy woman who turns all gangsta in the bar" which is quite possibly the worst performance from any of the Rocky movies. And that's saying something! "A fool? I'm the fool? You're the fool!"