Rocky Balboa (12A.)
Directed by Sylvester Stallone.
Starring Sylvester Stallone, Burt Young, Antonio Tarver, Milo Ventimiglia, Geraldine Hughes. 102 mins
I know you won’t believe me but it’s true – there’s is room in your heart for one more Rocky movie. Nobody wanted to see 60 year old Stallone clambering back in to the ring but when the old Rocky music strikes up over a training montage and Stallone stumbles and mumbles onto screen you won’t believe a man can feel this good just from the expenditure of a cinema ticket. (And I was never a big Rocky fan.)
It could/ should have been awful and in some ways it is. The storytelling is perfunctory – the plot sets up dilemmas like an estranged son or the Boxing Board refusing him a license, only to have them effortlessly waved away with a motivational speech by Rocky.
The first hour moves at a daringly slow pace, which is in keeping with it’s proudly conservative, old fashioned nature. It’s a film about heart over head, work over pleasure, Rocky I over Rocky IV, Sinatra over hip hop. Though he is careful to have his black friend, I wonder if at some level the film is about the negative effects of African-American culture on society. Balboa goes on and on about the decline of the old (white) neighbourhood; whites who adopt a gangsta attitude in a bar have to be sorted out and both the major black characters need Rocky’s influence to push them into becoming really decent people.
At the start, Rocky is unfulfilled running a restaurant in Philly, trapped in a cycle of mourning for wife Adrian who died two years earlier. Meanwhile the heavyweight division is bossed by the unbeaten Mason “The Line” Dixon. (Mason Dixon – Stallone seems to have esoteric literary tastes. After Rocky “V” that’s two consecutive Thomas Pynchon references.) Audiences hate Dixon because there is nobody around to challenge him. Then a computer stimulation fight between Rocky and Dixon suggests a solution.
Rocky VI, to give it a number, works because its story exactly matches that of its star. Months ago we were hailing the return of Ben Affleck from celebrity clowndom in Hollywoodland, but that was nothing compared with Stallone who been kept at an arm’s length from quality for about two decades. He’s been down long enough, he’s paid his dues. Even when it’s ponderous the movie is propped up by enormous audience good will; suddenly we all want to see him succeed again.
Rocky Balboa is a film for men who get teary during World Cup montages, a shameless man-weepie for a generation of blokes who were never going to be contenders. I’m frankly embarrassed by how much I enjoyed it.
Rocky Balboa (12A.)
Directed by Sylvester Stallone.
Starring Sylvester Stallone, Burt Young, Antonio Tarver, Milo Ventimiglia, Geraldine Hughes. 102 mins
I know you won’t believe me but it’s true – there’s is room in your heart for one more Rocky movie. Nobody wanted to see 60 year old Stallone clambering back in to the ring but when the old Rocky music strikes up over a training montage and Stallone stumbles and mumbles onto screen you won’t believe a man can feel this good just from the expenditure of a cinema ticket. (And I was never a big Rocky fan.)
It could/ should have been awful and in some ways it is. The storytelling is perfunctory – the plot sets up dilemmas like an estranged son or the Boxing Board refusing him a license, only to have them effortlessly waved away with a motivational speech by Rocky.
The first hour moves at a daringly slow pace, which is in keeping with it’s proudly conservative, old fashioned nature. It’s a film about heart over head, work over pleasure, Rocky I over Rocky IV, Sinatra over hip hop. Though he is careful to have his black friend, I wonder if at some level the film is about the negative effects of African-American culture on society. Balboa goes on and on about the decline of the old (white) neighbourhood; whites who adopt a gangsta attitude in a bar have to be sorted out and both the major black characters need Rocky’s influence to push them into becoming really decent people.
At the start, Rocky is unfulfilled running a restaurant in Philly, trapped in a cycle of mourning for wife Adrian who died two years earlier. Meanwhile the heavyweight division is bossed by the unbeaten Mason “The Line” Dixon. (Mason Dixon – Stallone seems to have esoteric literary tastes. After Rocky “V” that’s two consecutive Thomas Pynchon references.) Audiences hate Dixon because there is nobody around to challenge him. Then a computer stimulation fight between Rocky and Dixon suggests a solution.
Rocky VI, to give it a number, works because its story exactly matches that of its star. Months ago we were hailing the return of Ben Affleck from celebrity clowndom in Hollywoodland, but that was nothing compared with Stallone who been kept at an arm’s length from quality for about two decades. He’s been down long enough, he’s paid his dues. Even when it’s ponderous the movie is propped up by enormous audience good will; suddenly we all want to see him succeed again.
Rocky Balboa is a film for men who get teary during World Cup montages, a shameless man-weepie for a generation of blokes who were never going to be contenders. I’m frankly embarrassed by how much I enjoyed it.
