Rocky Balboa recap (SPOILERS) (1 Viewer)

[UngersPride]

I agree that not knowing that Paulie was living with Rocky didn't affect the plot. But it came as a big surprise when I saw it on the dvd.

The problem with not providing a short re-cap of Rocky V at the start of RB is that the events of RV occurred 16 years ago. I saw the movie a long time ago, but I have completely forgotten about big chunks of it. Add to this all the people who will see RB and who have never seen RV, and I think people can appreciate how that could cause some problems.

A short recap of major events in Rocky's life at the start of RB would have brought everyone up to speed, especially the reasons for his living in the slums.

As a result of this knowledge, I immediately bump up my score for this movie to 7.5/10.

I will rent Rocky V and Balboa again, and watch them both. No doubt the score will rise higher after that.

Still, Stallone could have done everyone a big, big favour by providing a recap.

 

[Ray H]

I saw this for the first time last night. As for my previous knowledge of Rocky movies, I'd seen the original a couple of times on TV, but I don't think I ever saw it all the way through. More like bits and pieces here and there. Kinda the same with the sequels. Never gave a damn for them. So I decided to watch this because I'd heard it was pretty good. I would agree with that opinion. It's an emotional and pretty inpirational movie. I was surprised by how short it was (about 90 minutes), but even for its short runtime, it feels a bit longer. Anyway, I didn't think it was perfect, but a solid movie nevertheless. Good to see Stallone in top form again, but it's disheartening to see him in those new Rambo movie stills.

 

[Tim Glover]

So I should give Rocky V a try huh?

Part of me wonders if some of the love Rocky Balboa got from critics and fans was the fact that most-if not all-were rolling their eyes when news hit there would indeed be a 6th film? The pleasant surprise that is was VERY good...just gave us all a big sigh of relief. Regarding the sequels it kind of seems like each one lost some core audience to a degree although I like Rocky III with Mr. T much better than Rocky II.

Could be due to those great Survivor songs like Eye of the Tiger that immediately grew into legend.

Not taking away from the movie at all, but it's hard to remove sentiment and wanting to pull for someone out of the equation. And in this situation, we were not only rooting for Rocky Balboa, but Stallone as well.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Can't agree with that. The Rocky character jumps all over the place through the series. Look at him in the terrible Rocky III: he's become some kind of robot in that one. The Rocky of Balboa connects better to the original than any Rocky in quite a lot of films - probably going back to II. (While put back into his roots, the Rocky of V was a cartoon moron...)

 

[TravisR]

Lets not get nuts. Out of the sequels that have numbers in their title, I liked Rocky II and IV is fun as a campy 1980's goof but beyond that, I think they're pretty lousy. So I'm obviously not the biggest Rocky fan and I thought Rocky Balboa was great.

 

[DavidPla]

Well, if you don't want to waste two hours watching "Rocky V", you can waste 2 minutes and watch the "Rocky V" trailer which pretty much recaps the whole movie...

http://www.movie-list.com/trailers.php?id=rocky5

 

[Tim Glover]

 

[James Ryfun]

I loved this movie so much. So very well done. It made me go out and buy the first 3 movies to see all over again. (It's been a few years.) And yes, I'll pick up IV and V to complete the set.

Anyway, I agree Rocky Balboa was the perfect ending to the series.

 

[Bob_S.]

Tim, don't feel embarrassed about Rocky III, I liked it better than Rocky II also. The one thing that really didn't get explained to me was if he was broke from Rocky V how could he afford a restaurant?

The reason Rocky visits all his old haunts is to show us how deeply Adrian's death has affected him. She was his life. I would probably do the same thing if my wife died. Some people react to life in different ways. This was Rocky's way of coping with her death. I just wish they would have had her death scene in the movie, I know I would have lost it.

 

[Ray H]

Maybe the bank manager liked him?

 

[Dave Mack]

Getting a restaurant up and running for his character years later is not that much of a stretch, I feel. He still had a decent name, still had the love of the Philly people. One or two backers and bingo, restaurant.
And I still like V a helluva lot more than then the feature length MTV videos that were III and IV, (montage city and grrr... Survivor)
V tried to go for the I vibe, even had Avildsen on board. Problem was, Tommy Gunn became a very simplified cartoon (who couldn't act either, btw...) and the Don King type charater was just way too over the top.
But, there were some good family scenes, (I'm sure the scene where Stallone's real life kid yells at him, "No. You were never there!" had some basis in reality) was good seeing the old neighborhood and the one flashback scene at Mick's gym with Burgess Meredith just coming on and in 3 minutes showing why he was so brilliant make it much more watchable than III or IV to me. When Rocky was living in the big mansions and had the Armani suits, I just couldn't really click with him. Rocky works best (for me) when he's the underdog, down and out, broke with Paulie in the old neighborhood.

but that's just me.
And I LOVED RB...

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

Just a random revisit to this thread but my dad and I just watched the film on Showtime OnDemand HD and my dad loved it.

It's funny because he hadn't seen it yet and when I told him we were going to watch Rocky Balboa his immediate response was "They made ANOTHER one!?", and it was great to see his turn around when it was over lol.

It was yet another example of the film defying expectations and turning a jaded naysayer into a believer.

Stallone pulled off a minor miracle, here and i'm still in awe of what he accomplished.