My Review of "Rocky III"

Rocky III came out in 1982. It takes a big left turn from what the franchise used to be with the first two iterations. This could also be blamed on the era that it was made. The movie definitely feels like it's a product of a new generation. That is also a blessing and curse in this case. For the most part it is quite enjoyable though.

The movie starts out similar to how the second movie started off. It recaps the events of the last movie. This one changes it up a bit because in the last movie Rocky became a champion. There's a lot more montages in this movie than in the previous two movies. We already get a montage at the very beginning to explain Rocky's three years of success after winning the championship.

Rocky now lives in the limelight with fame and money. Meanwhile, there's a new rising star by the name of Clubber Lang. He's been climbing the ranks of the boxing scene and for some reason Rocky has been avoiding his request for a fight. All will be revealed later on as to why this was happening. It's a pretty big plot point in the movie.

There's a ton of stuff that happens in this movie that it can feel like a whirlwind. There are significant character that leaves Rocky and an old adversary that comes back to help him out. If you've been keeping up with the movies then I can see how you can feel some sentiment to these changes. In a way this is sort of like a Marvel series before the Marvel series thought of their whole MCU.

I found a few other weird things about this movie. They totally ignore Rocky's eye situation that they brought up in the second movie. That was a huge element in the previous movie but it seemed to be something that they were glad to ignore. Pauly is also a big anomaly. I know he's there for comic relief but at times it feels really awkward to have him in the group. Still, he is a beloved character in the franchise but he can still come off really annoying.

The movie also knows what we liked about the previous movies. They know we like training montages and boy do they give it to us in this one. There are way more training montages than I thought there would be. You have to give it to them for being creative with some of the training decisions they made for this movie. They work really well and I quite enjoyed them.

Adrian plays a smaller role but she still has a significant role in this movie. I think the cast really feels like they know their characters by now and portray them in a much more confident way this time around. It's fun because you can kind of see how these actors probably got along while they weren't filming the movie as well.

I did have a bit of a gripe with the last big fight of the movie. This went a little too fast and anticlimactic. I know what they were getting at but it almost sort of seemed like a cakewalk. It makes me question the skill discrepancies between Apollo, Rocky and Clubber. They kind of try to explain the whole reason why it was like this but it felt a little out of brand. Rocky has always been a guy with low intelligence and then they allow him to outsmart his opponent. It was weird.

Overall, I still thought this movie was highly entertaining but it definitely feels very different from the other two movies. The second movie does feel like it's pandering more to the audience. This movie goes to the next level with pandering. That's not a bad thing though. I ate it all up and had a good time. I have to give this movie a 6.5 out of 10.