Rocky Balboa

It's tough growing old, but even though the body starts to crumble and the mind slowly fades, the fight should go on; this message, which will resonate with long-time fans of the series, is at the heart of Rocky Balboa, and makes for an emotional return for America's greatest fictional sporting hero.

In the years since returning to his old Philly stomping ground, Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) has lost his beloved wife Adrian to cancer, and settled into retirement from boxing, the heavyweight champ now running a restaurant called Adrian's. His son Robert (Milo Ventimiglia) has very little time for his old man, bitter that he has lived for so long in his father's shadow. Feeling lonely, Rocky befriends bar-woman Marie (Geraldine Hughes) and her son Steps (James Francis Kelly III), who support the ageing boxer when he decides that what he really wants to do is return to the ring.

Stallone returns to the directing chair for this sixth film in the long-running franchise, and he does a great job, carefully balancing the sentimentality with the action, never letting things get too schmaltzy or too cheesy. Rocky's fight to pick up the pieces and keep moving forward is inspirational, his kind nature is heart-warming, and his motivational speech to his son is frank yet touching. The final 'exhibition' match between Balboa and current heavyweight champion Mason 'The Line' Dixon (Antonio Tarver) proves that the film's star still has what it takes in the ring, the fight being just as hard-hitting and tense as those against his opponents in parts one to four (the less said about Tommy Gunn the better).

While I could have done without all of the fancy visual touches during the closing fight (rapid cuts between full colour and black and white), Rocky V ably proves that comebacks are possible, even this late in the day.

Sylvester Stallone completes his Rocky Epic with a stirring conclusion. I saw a special sneak preview in Detroit at a Kronk Boxing Gym benefit. Although the first 45 minutes kind of dragged, and at times the dialog made me cringe, its at least as worthy of Rocky II or the original Rocky. A lot of flashbacks, but it definitely wraps up the series a lot better than Rocky V did. It won't win best picture, or any great acting awards, but the cinematography was better than I've seen in a lot of the previous 5. As far as the big question in the blogs, does Rocky die in this one, you'll have to wait till Christmas and see for yourself. The music was great, the final scenes were great, and Paulie was great! It was also interesting to reintroduce the characters of Little Marie and Spider Rico from the first movie.

It all started way back in 1976 when Sylvester Stallone - who wrote the script and took the leading role - created the character of the Philadelphia low-grade boxer who managed, against all the odds, to go the distance with world heavyweight champion Aollo Creed and give the world a new kind of underdog to support. In "Rocky II" (1979), after 15 brutal rounds, he defeats Creed and takes the title. In 1982, "Rocky III" sees our hero lose to Mt T before Apollo helps him bounce back. By the time of "Rocky IV" (1985), the franchise had acquired an international dimension as the Cold War is acted out in the ring with Rocky squaring up to the Russian Ivan Drago. Another five years passed before Stallone felt that he had to return to the iconic role - in "Rocky V", he adopts a young fighter who turns on him.

That really should have been it - but, as the tagline for "Rocky Balboa" puts it, "It ain't over till it's over" so, 16 year after the last film and an amazing 30 years after the original movie, he's back. It seems that Rock is so missing his wife Adrian that, in spite of running a successful restaurant named after her, he finds that he has something "luking in the basement". On this sixth outing, the narrative arc is just the same as first time round - again a complete no-chancer facing a world champion after a gruelling training routine involving the same frozen meat, the same one-armed press-ups, and of course the same race up the Museum of Art steps - and the same music.

What's different is the advanced years of Rocky and of course Stallone himself - but he looks good, the film looks good, and you'll feel good at the final bell. As the man says: "It ain't about how hard you hit, it is about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward, how much can you take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done!"

I really don't know what people were thinking about giving this film such a hard time. None of the other Rocky films were horrible, why would this one suddenly be? I agree, there were some cheesy things that obviously would have to happen to justify him fighting so old. But, he did a very good job writing in certain twists to make the story make a bit more sense how it could actually happen. I went into the movie expecting scene after scene to be cheesy. I was actually surprised by the lack of cheesiness, granted it had a bit.

This was a very heartfelt film. It was definitely going back to the kind of movie the first one was, not spending too much time on the fighting part of the story. The fighting was toned down quite a bit in this one, probably so Stallone could acquire a PG rating.

The film is rightfully rated PG, and I would recommend it to any age group. Just a touching story about caring, friendship and love. An excellent way to end the Rocky series...

If you are a film buff you know for example that Bogey did a number of films especially late in his career which, while not exactly Maltese Falcon, were nonetheless solid and entertaining.

So that is the key to this film. Understand that Stallone, who I think will be idolized by viewers of the future, does not know the meaning of the word quit. The oddsmakers said Rocky would stop at the second. When the 4th came out and was rock-solid (!) Hollywood was stunned.

Rocky 5 was a bit of a lemon but again Stallone never quits.

If you have seen all the Rocky films and they are still fresh in your mind, then his film will be a treat.

If you on the other hand are not a fan, or just arrived from another planet, then what you have is a well-told and well-acted drama that builds into a pretty good boxing film.

Either way you win.

((Designated "IMDb Top Reviewer." Please check out my list "167+ Nearly-Perfect Movies (with the occasional Anime or TV miniseries) you can/should see again and again (1932 to the present))