My Review of "Rocky IV"

Rocky IV came out in 1985. It was probably the my first memory of Rocky. This is the movie that kicked off my awareness of Rocky and I saw this during the height of the cold war crisis. The problem is, back when I saw it then I didn't understand what was going on. I just thought they were superheroes fighting each other. Years later I would watch it again with some understanding of the backstory. I liked it even more Now it's been so many years later. There's the worry that I'm not going to like it anymore.

This movie starts off just like the previous one. There's a little backstory of what had happened in the previous movie. The backstory this time is a little longer since so much had happened in the previous outing. We're now in the thick of the cold war era and the movie franchise is following suit.

Things are looking good for Rocky. His life is prospering and everyone seems to be at peace. Though, being the champion of the world does mean that there are going to be competitors knocking at his door. This time it's a competitor by the name of Drago from Russia.

Drago seems to be some sort of superhuman trained in one thing only. He's got the punching capabilities three times the average heavyweight boxer. The guy stands about a foot taller than Apollo and Rocky. He seems the same size as Thunderlips from the previous movie but more lean.

For some odd reason Apollo decides that he wants to fight this monstrous Russian giant. He says it's his pride as a fighter and as a patriot to the United States. This was my first indication that this movie took a deep turn out of what Rocky used to be. That's not to say that Rocky III didn't take a huge turn itself from the series. This turn is like Fast and Furious franchise turn. The air of realism flies out the window. If you're okay with this, then you're probably going to have a good time.

I, on the other hand, kind of felt on the fence with this. This movie kind of deletes a ton of the lore that the previous Rocky movies had built up. That last sparring match with Apollo at the end of Rocky III was mentioned but not really brought up. This could have been the catalyst to Apollo's ambition for another fight but they didn't do anything with it. The whole thing about the previous movie was that Apollo taught Rocky to fight with finesse and they threw that out the window as well. Don't even get me started with the eye problems from Rocky II. There's just so many things that they totally ignored in this movie.

On the bright side they did make this entertaining. The problem with that is that they made it very much like professional wrestling. You know exactly why the bad guy is a bad guy and why the good guy is a good guy. I thought it was kind of funny why they had to fight in Russia in the first place. Drago has the most ridiculous post interview after his fight with Apollo and his team wonders why he's being booed out of town.

Even the montage is a little lackluster in this movie compared to the previous movies. I liked that he was working with primitive equipment versus Drago using the state of the art equipment though. It was lackluster to me because in the previous movies, Rocky was always learning something. There was always a method to the madness of what he was going through. In this movie, it was more of a show to see who is tougher. There's no lessons learned and he even says, there's nothing for him to learn anymore. They could have used this to their advantage in showing how he's training as a veteran rather than an upstart. I'm not going to kid myself, there was never an anticipation where he was going to use his head to outsmart his opponent. That was one of my criticisms last movie too. Rocky's supposed to be a meathead so it makes sense.

Overall, I thought there was a ton of potential to this movie that was totally untapped. Fortunately, they did put a competent movie together. It was still entertaining but it falls flat of what the previous movies were. Later on this movie would become more of an icon of the series because of the continued storyline of Creed. After reviewing the other movies so closely, I can see that this is actually one of the weaker entries into the series. I have to give this movie a 5.5 out of 10. It's still fun to watch just not to the caliber of the other ones if you watch them back to back.