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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
 Posted - 09/26/2007 : 6:39:28 PM
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Ken’s review of the Rocky series from I-IV was so engaging that I bought the entire Rocky series and for about two weeks played the movies in a loop, first actually sitting and watching them, then having them on just as background filler for whatever I was doing.
I noticed that Rocky V is just the kind of half-great/half-lousy movie that I enjoy. I wanted to do a dissection. But I felt it would’ve been inappropriate to do a Reader’s Review of it so soon after Ken did the first four, especially because a few folks were asking him to do V and VI to complete the series. I didn’t know if there was a protocol for this, but I felt that if there was, I’d be violating it.
Quandary! What to do? I pondered, mused, gazed up at the stars, looked within myself, raged, threw tantrums, tossed every one-handed object that wasn’t bolted down across the room, and cried myself to sleep.
Then, as if from on high, a solution came to me: Why not just ask him? So I did, and he said go nuts.
So here we go.
Like the previous Rocky sequels, this one opens with footage of the climactic fight of the previous. Unlike the previous Rocky sequels, this footage is not just to bring us up to speed, but to set an emotional tone for the movie; and that tone (of the footage, not the movie itself) is much different from the bright and triumphant Rocky movies than we’re used to. The opening credits play over the footage of Rocky and Ivan Drago punching each other into jelly. When each actor’s name appears on the screen, the footage goes to slo-mo, the screen goes sepia-toned, and we get shots of Rocky either taking a brutal-looking punch or falling to the canvas. Talia Shire’s credit is shown over her with a half-terrified look on her face as she watches her man get pounded. Burt Young’s is shown over him as he looks on in distress from the corner.
So while the previous movie’s intro footage was saying to us, “It was a tough fight, but Rocky emerged triumphant in the end,” this movie’s intro footage is saying, “Rocky emerged triumphant, but it wasn’t without a price.”
I think this is excellent. Stallone promoted this movie as bringing the franchise not just full-circle, but back down to earth as well.* By presenting the footage of Rocky IV in this manner, emphasizing the damage Rocky took in the ring, Rocky V is not just coming down to earth, but also pulling the Rocky-Drago fight down to earth with it. Excellent!
* - I do not know whether the decision for John Avildsen, director of the first movie, to return to direct this one was made before or after Stallone had decided on this back-to-roots approach.
The credits end with Rocky’s knockout of Drago, and Rocky standing tall as the meat in an American-flag burrito. Then the movie proper begins. In a darkened shower stall, Rocky is leaning against the wall in a side-nudity pose. The darkness could be a tasteful artistic touch, or a reflection of the poor maintenance standards of Russian hotels. In long shot, it looks like he’s simply dog-tired, as one would expect after the fight. A close-up of his face, however, shows him twitching and shivering in some form of distress. In the next room, his trainer Duke is exulting Rocky’s victory, holding up the trunks and saying, “You did it for Apollo!” From offscreen, Rocky calls, “Duke?” Duke says, “Yeah champ, whatcha need?” Rocky says, “Get Adrian!” The tone of Rocky’s voice in those two words are perfect. You can almost hear the unspoken “Something’s wrong!” Duke gleeful expression turns to one of concern.
In the shower stall, Adrian finds Rocky sitting and shivering (her attire is the same as the Rocky IV fight, so this is indeed that very night). She asks what’s wrong, and Rocky gives a semi-coherent answer about knowing something’s wrong inside but not knowing what it is. When she expresses her incomprehension, he says in a voice of quiet fright, “I can’t stop my hands from shaking.” Pan down to his forearms that shake as they rest on his knees. He gives what comfort she can, and he mewls, “I wanna go home,” just like a scared little boy.
To me, this is one of the best scenes in the entire Rocky franchise. This lays the basis for what could’ve been a very very interesting story: Rocky having to face the consequences of the life path that he had chosen, consequences that he can’t just put on the gloves and punch into submission, consequences that he has no option but to learn to cope with. And to witness this World Champion, vanquisher of Ivan Drago, Clubber Lang, and Apollo Creed, now cowering from a force that he cannot fight, keeps the viewer anchored to the seat. This is excellent!
Until the scene ends with a slow right-to-left wipe. As far as I know, wipes are never used in a serious context, especially right-to-left wipes, which simulate turning the page of a comic book. So the result is jarring, and the decision to end this disquieting scene with a wipe is puzzling.
As it turns out, it’ll also prove to be totally appropriate, because all the somber and concerned mood in the scene is immediately discarded. From here on out, back-to-roots will only apply to the on-paper facts of the story, not the execution of the story. And the implications of the scene, which looked like the basis of the story, will be revealed to be nothing but a set-up for a plot device just to enable the weak story we get to move forward.
Someone oughta invent a new style of scene transition: The Crumple. Because that’s what the movie does with this scene as soon as it ends. Crumples it and tosses it away.
We slow-wipe to a Russian airplane landing on an American field. A welcome committee, complete with high-school band, greets Rocky and Co. as they deplane. A now-chipper Rocky says, “Where’s the kid? I don’t see the kid!” From out of the crowd, a 15-ish boy appears, shouting “Daaaad!” This is Rocky Jr., played by Sage Stallone. No one will dispute the colossal nepotism involved here, but I don’t particularly mind it. Why NOT have one’s own son play the character’s son? And Sage doesn’t do badly in this movie, he really doesn’t. He just plays a totally uninteresting character who is the key figure in a totally uninteresting subplot.
The most notable aspect of him is the fact that he’s at least 5 years older than he was when his folks left for Russia. I think I know why this is, and it makes sense: The time scale for each Rocky movie is rather lengthy, because boxers go months between fights. So we have a movie that begins in early ’86, and takes us up to 1990. Sure, the movie could've started with the same kid seen in Rocky IV, and then replaced him with an older kid as events unfolded and time elapsed, but that would've been ridiculous. To pull it off would require getting child actors who look enough alike to be convincing. It's not like Superman, where he goes from teenager to full-grown adult. That's doable. But different actors from 10-or-so to 15-or-so? Forget it.
The only other options are to write him out of continuity entirely, which is a nonstarter, or do what was done for Rocky III: Have the events of the movie start in 1990, with a opening montage to explain what's happened in the interim. Given that the events in the interim are pretty major for the movie's story, that wouldn't be any good either.
So the movie is taking the best route available by giving us the 1990 model Rocky Balboa Jr. at the start and letting us figure, “Okay, he’s really still a 10-year-old,” knowing that this story is gonna unfold over a few years, and by movie’s end, he’ll be at the age we now see.
Still, the movie isn’t exactly making it easy for the viewer. Bursting from the crowd as he does is a fairly dramatic way of introducing a character, and by 1990, the video market existed, so plenty of us remember what he looked like in Rocky IV, doubly so as IV was shown on prime-time network TV in 1988 and scored pretty hefty ratings.
Junior greets his folks, Paulie, and Duke, and then we cut to a press conference inside the hangar. Strange place for a press conference…**shrug**…no biggie. Incidentally, Duke doesn’t say anything after “Yeah champ, whatcha need?” and he now vanishes from the movie entirely, making this the smallest amount of both screen time and lines Tony Burton would get in six movies as Duke. Happily, Rocky Balboa makes up for this by giving him almost as much of both as IV did.
I'll continue tomorrow unless I'm suckin' and someone tells me to shut up.
[url="http://myspace.com/handsoftime"]The Hands of Time[/url] |
Edited by - Food on 09/26/2007 8:52:00 PM
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BradH812
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1294 Posts |
Posted - 09/26/2007 : 7:45:00 PM
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You ain't suckin', so don't shut up. I'm about to post a review, and I hates to be in competition with ya. Ah, well, double the fun. Write on!
BTW, you may want to do a quick edit of that post: the actor's name is Tony Burton. Tony Curtis is Jamie Lee's pop. *grin* |
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 09/26/2007 : 8:50:07 PM
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WHOOPS!!!
I don't know how I did that, especially when I typed it so soon after the opening credits with his name right on the screen. "Tony Curtis." HTF did I do that?
I suck!
**sheepish grin**...So maybe it ain't such a bad thing that he ain't in the rest of the movie.
[url="http://myspace.com/handsoftime"]The Hands of Time[/url] |
Edited by - Food on 09/26/2007 8:51:32 PM |
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BradH812
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1294 Posts |
Posted - 09/26/2007 : 10:34:55 PM
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Hee hee hee.
By the way, you nailed it on the opening scene. Damn, I wish the rest of the movie had been half as good. I don't think I've ever seen Rocky V all the way through, but I've seen enough to know I don't really want to. |
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 09/27/2007 : 12:42:12 AM
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^Thank you kindly, Brad! And that's what we're here for, to dissect movies, so you don't have to see them all the way through. :D
[url="http://myspace.com/handsoftime"]The Hands of Time[/url] |
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 09/27/2007 : 12:45:08 AM
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In the press conference (which in long-shot appears to be a smaller crowd of press than you’d think), Rocky fields questions. Adrian answers a question about his health with “My husband is in perfect physical condition.” I guess she and Ludmilla Drago must’ve gotten close after the fight, and Lady Drago gave her pointers about dealing with the press. One pressguy asks him about the American Medical Association recommending that boxing be banned. I vaguely remember something about the AMA actually making such as recommendation around this time. I guess Stallone was trying to be witty. Certainly Rocky has a witty answer.
If the movie has done a mood shift with the transition to this scene, now it does a bit of a plot shift as well, and it’s even more right-angle. From the back of the crowd, a jovial elder black dude shouts, “That was a beautiful answer, champ!” He strides up to the podium next to Rocky, blustering happily non-stop the whole time. He introduces himself as George Washington Duke, promoter extraordinaire, sings Rocky’s praises like a used car salesman, then pitches to Rocky a fight against the top contender, Union Kane, who is standing beside him. Everybody in the place is wearing baffled and disoriented expressions as he goes on and on.
So am I. Good God, we’re less than ten minutes in, and the fall-out from IV is already being dropped entirely, and as abruptly as this, no less. Apparently, the movie knows it, because a pretty lady journalist remarks that this is pretty bad timing, as “He just got off the plane!” Correct.
Adrian interjects that her husband is retired and there will be no more fights. Rocky takes the cue, and the Balboa clan exit, with the press (actually, one old white dude who shouts louder than the rest) demanding that Rocky answer the challenge right now and not later.
Actually, given that Union Kane appears totally unremarkable (despite being played by real-life boxer Michael Williams), I don’t fault Rocky for not even acknowledging his presence. I’m guessing that since Rocky isn’t going to be in the ring with anybody this time around, nobody really cared to make Kane seem formidable. After Hulk Hogan, Mr. T, and Dolph Lundgren, you’d never have known that Kane was supposed to be a potential opponent if dialogue hadn’t explicitly identified him as such.
I also wonder if what the point is of making George Washington Duke such an obvious allegory/exaggeration of Don King. King was pretty irritating, so putting an even more irritating ringer for him in the movie isn’t scoring points with me.
Fade to the Balboas returning to the Balboa estate. Kick-ass lookin’ place, although I’m not sure it’s the same place we saw in the III and IV, unless that’s the back entrance. Rocky is very happy to be home, ironically foreshadowing that “I ain’t never leavin’ this place again!” He dances with Adrian in the driveway, while Junior looks on in….something unhappy, although why he’d be unhappy, I have no clue. When Rocky offers to take Adrian upstairs and violate her like a parking meter, she answers with “Cost you a quarter.” First time I saw that, I thought that that was totally out of character for her, until a second later when Rocky exclaims, “Where’d you learn to talk dirty like that?” Cool!
Then we get an interesting bit. Junior, still looking pensive as Rocky and Adrian head inside, asks Paulie, “You notice something strange about Dad?” Paulie chocks it up to “A few hard shots.” I understand that there was actually well over an hour of material shot for this movie that wound up discarded in the final product, and that said material made this pretty much an entirely different story. I wonder if this line of Junior’s isn’t a remnant of an unused story, as Rocky really doesn’t seem to be acting strange at all. He’s a little more gleeful than usual, but nothing strange about that. **shrug** Maybe mental impairment really was gonna be the main plot.
That night, Rocky and Junior have a father-son moment. Dad’s impressed by Junior’s drawing of him. Junior jumps into bed, wearing pajamas (awesome fish tank behind the bed!). Remember what I said about Junior still being the 10-year-old from IV at this point? I submit the pajamas as Exhibit A. What kid still wears PJs at age 15?
But then Rocky sees another drawing, this one of a lady with disproportionately big tits. Junior says it’s his French teacher. Mmmm…..I’ll cop out by saying that Junior goes to a private school, and that in his private school, French is taught to 10-year-olds. Rocky does get a smile-worthy line about not letting Mom see this because “she don’t understand French too good.”
Rocky tucks him in (exhibit B) and leaves the room. Paulie and Adrian are shouting at each other (full circle, as advertised). It seems that Paulie had inadvertently given somebody power-of-attorney over the Balboa estate, and that now they’ve lost their entire fortune.
I’m not buying it for one second. Why would Rocky and Adrian trust Paulie with anything related to their financial matters? Between the three of them, I think Adrian would be the best qualified to handle that sort of thing. But it wouldn’t be too audience-pleasing if sweet little Adrian ruins the Balboa fortune, it’s gotta be dirty ol’ Paulie.
Cut to the view from a high-rise office, where some suit is explaining to the Balboas that what Paulie had thought was a tax extension form was really a power-of-attorney form. The accountant took the fortune, tried to turn a profit with it with the idea of returning it before anyone knew it was gone, but “the market dried up” and the money is lost forever. The suit has filed eight criminal charges against the guy, but that’s not reassuring anybody. Furthermore, Rocky has outstanding debts, hasn’t paid his taxes in six years, and there is outstanding mortgage on the house that none of the Balboa family knew about (is there someone knowledgable about this who can tell me if that’s feasible? To have an outstanding mortage on your house and not know it?).
We’re in the 16th minute of the movie here, and aside from the implausibility of Paulie having anything to do with financial stuff, the movie has done a brisk and reasonably credible job of crushing Rocky’s success into the ground. There are a few potential holes, though (I say potential because I’m no economics whiz, so I dunno): Wouldn’t Junior have a trust fund or something that can’t be touched? Wouldn’t Rocky’s residual income be fairly hefty?
But at this point, the movie starts serving up some insultingly huge holes. Paulie recommends cashing in on endorsements, advertising, etc. Given Rocky’s enormous nationwide popularity following his defeat of Drago, that’s not a bad idea at all. (Remember Mary Lou Retton? She was bombarded with endorsements after her perfect 10 in the ’84 Olympics, and she seemed to accept pretty much all of them. Watching Saturday morning cartoons, I couldn’t go one commercial break for months without seeing her. If an unknown gymnast can do that, I can’t imagine an already-legendary boxer winning a US-USSR epic boxing match couldn’t rake in even more.)
But Rocky says, “I ain’t a commercial kinda guy. I’m a fighter, that’s what I do for a livin’.” Two problems with that line:
1. The intro montage of III showed Rocky to be okay at doing advertisements, so he shouldn’t mind it that much.
2. In the first movie, he justifies his enforcer job to Mickey as “It’s a livin.” So Rocky is aware of the concept of doing what you have to do to get buy, even if it’s not quite what you’d want to be doing. If he had little enough problems breaking thumbs that he still went ahead and did it, doing advertisements to restore the family fortune shouldn’t bother him at all, especially now that he’s got Adrian and Junior to think about.
The movie recognizes that “ain’t a commercial kinda guy” is not very convincing, so it tries again, and with even less believability. The suit says that it’s just as well Rocky won’t do ads, because “we couldn’t get any sponsors. With the criminal investigation of the accountant, out pops a criminal record of Rocky’s for assault in connection with loansharking.”
Bull motherf**kin’ s**t.
With Rocky’s celebrity status being what it is and has been for this long, wouldn’t such a record of assault have already come to the public’s attention by now? Wouldn’t some nosy journalist who is just looking for dirt have already found it?
If said record of assault was somehow kept secret for this long (because it must not have been a problem for all those ads in the intro montage of III), would anybody really give a s**t when it came to light, especially with the assault over a decade in the past? He’s a boxer, not a tennis player! A boxer’s upbringing is generally tough, and I think most sports fans know that.
Why would the criminal investigation of the accountant necessitate airing Rocky’s criminal record? Rocky ain’t the one being investigated. If the suit means that maybe the accountant might air the criminal record as a form of out-of-court warfare, there are two possibilities: Either the suit senses that the accountant might do that, or the accountant has already threatened to do that. If the former, and with the investigation just getting underway (after all, the Balboas had just now brought this to his attention), there oughta be plenty of time to do plenty of ads before the investigation gets dicey enough for the accountant to want to release the assault record. If the latter, a decade-old assault charge doesn’t strike me as a very good deterrent force against a lawsuit filed on behalf of America’s favorite athlete (especially a boxer), because again, nobody would care! The suit’s reaction to said threat should be along the lines of “Go right ahead.” Besides, doesn’t Rocky have a PR agent? Wouldn’t a halfway good PR agent be able to spin the airing of Rocky’s assault record by the very man who stole his entire fortune, and make Rocky come off as a sympathetic figure?
Absolute anal blood.
The suit recommends a few more fights and they’ll be out of this in no time. Paulie likes the idea, Adrian doesn’t.
Paulie and Adrian yell at each other some more. Adrian yells that it’s all Paulie’s fault, Paulie yells that Adrian is pampered, Rocky tells Paulie to watch his mouth around Adrian. Full circle. The same yelling from the first movie.
Rocky shouts that he’ll go ahead and fight Union Kane “I don’t care, anywhere, any time,” and he does these little hip-hip gestures with his hands as he does. I don’t know why. Rocky leaves the office. Adrian chases after him (incidentally, her voice more hoarse-sounding than before. I don’t know if that’s age or if she was under the weather). She frantically reminds him that he needs to see a doctor, but he’s having none of it, telling her, “I’m a fighter. I got problems, I gotta fight.” After a quiet pause, she says, “Will you do it for me?” And he instantly gives in. Just like that.
Watching Rocky and Adrian in the first movie had me thinking, “I wanna fall in love like that.” Watching Rocky and Adrian in this movie has me thinking, “Would falling in love like that be worth allowing someone to change your mind that easily?” I don’t know if that makes me cynical, a scumbag, or just plain human,…**shrug**…but that’s what the scene inspires in me.
Incidentally, I haven't checked the casts, but I'm certain that the guy who plays the suit here is the same guy who plays the chairman of the commmittee that Rocky appeals to in VI.
Damn, I didn't know I'd type this much about one scene. It's not tomorrow yet. So I'll still continue tomorrow, which is the same tomorrow as the tomorrow mentioned in the first post......**looks at everyone's "WTF" expressions**......Me neither.
[url="http://myspace.com/handsoftime"]The Hands of Time[/url] |
Edited by - Food on 09/27/2007 12:53:18 AM |
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 09/27/2007 : 10:19:52 PM
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Sidenote: On my way home today, I turn on a local sports radio show, and Don King was the guest! And I was amazed that he was every bit as loud and wordy and flamboyant in speech as he's always been. And the actor playing his analogue, George Washington Duke, nails it perfectly! Not just the tone of voice, but the habit of addressing people by their full names half a dozen times in one conversation, making everything out to be the grandest thing of all time, the whole bit. Props to Richard Gant: His character may be irritating, but the actor did his homework!
Cut to a doctor’s office, where a pair of doctors are explaining an MRI readout to Rocky and Adrian. One doctor says that a lifetime of punches to head have given Rocky a “condition particular to boxers called cavum septum pellucidum,” as well as surface neuron damage. Uh…….cavum septum pellucidum is not particular to boxers. It’s also present in all newborns, and about 4% of the adult population, for whom it’s totally harmless. He mispronounces the last word as “pell-UCK-ye-dum.” It’s pronounced “pell-OOS-eh-dum.” Clods.
Adrian asks how long for recovery, and is answered, “The effects are irreversible.” Mmmm….cavum septum pellucidum has no effects. It’s asymptomatic. It’s a normal variant that any one of us could develop out of nowhere without even knowing it. So he must be referring to the surface neuron damage. Wish he’d’ve given a name for that.
Adrian freaks out, saying that Rocky must retire. Rocky is defiant, but Adrian asks the doctors if he could get licensed to box with his impairment, which the doctors confirm.
Pigs**t.
To this day, while cavum septum pellucidum has been confirmed as a common condition in boxers who’ve had long careers, the WBC still doesn’t cite its existence in a boxer as reason for denying a license; and there is skepticism in the field of sports neurology that the presence of cavum septum pellucidum has anything to do with a boxer’s continued ability to fight and sustain damage.
Here, read for yourself: http://www.wbaonline.com/medical/view.asp?idarticule=14
So I’m not buying for one second the notion that Rocky can’t get licensed because of cavum septum pellucidum and surface neuron damage so minor that the docs never bothered naming it. Now then, if Rocky had exhibited some symptoms like he did in the opening scene, then I could buy it (the press conference would’ve been an ideal place for it). But ever since the opening scene, he’s seemed just fine; the same likable mook he’s always been, with appropriate emotional response to every circumstance, and with mental faculties no slower than ever.
And as long as we’re on the subject of getting a boxing license (and if I was on the ball, I’d’ve mentioned this in the press conference scene), since Rocky gave up his boxing commission in the previous movie, why is G.W. Duke asking Rocky for a fight with Kane? He should be either asking Rocky to apply for re-instatement with the Boxing Commission, or asking whoever the new #1-ranked boxer in the world is for a championship bout.
Adrian plays the do-you-love-me card on Rocky, and it works again, for the second time in less than five minutes. Adrian gets assurance that the medical findings are confidential, end scene.
Brief montage of newspaper clips saying “Rocky Retires,” Rocky Bankrupt, sues former accountant,” and “Balboa Estate Auction,” all set to Bill Condi’s nicely syrupy variation on “Gonna Crash Now.” Maybe I’m the one who is syrupy, but I found this bit effective, and I imagine the folks who saw this in the theater probably felt the same.
Segue out of montage to the auction, where Junior sits forlornly on the motorcycle. We hear an auctioneer saying “May we hear the next bid, please?….Are you done?….Sold!” That’s a strange thing to hear from an auctioneer to a bidder, “Are you done?” I thought auctioneers want bids to continue. **shrug** A throwaway jerk tells Junior to get off the bike, it’s been sold. Dad gives Junior unreassuring encouragement that they ain’t down yet and they’ll get it all back, but Junior ain’t believing it.
Cut to the attic. Rocky has put on his leather jacket and fedora, and Adrian puts on the granny glasses she wore in the first movie just for a sad old-times kick. Rocky says he’s going out for a bit.
Cut to the streets of Philly. Rocky exits some graffiti-covered building and lights up a smoke. This is a bit much. I can see Rocky re-donning his fedora and leather, but resuming his smoking habit just like that? C’mon. He goes into Mickey’s Gym, which is now a deserted wreck. Splendid. Mickey wills the gym to Rocky Jr., and the Balboas let it go to s**t. Betcha wish you’d’ve taken better care of the place now that he doesn’t have your own fortunes to fall back on, doncha?
Rocky puts on a dust-covered glove and smacks it in his fist, creating a dust cloud. The inhalation of these vapors causes Rocky to hallucinate one of his own training sessions with Mickey. It’s nice to see Burgess Meredith again, sure, but Mickey is much more grandfather-like than we remember. He tells hallucino-Rocky (who we never see clearly, as it’s not Stallone) that training Rocky gives Mickey a reason to stay alive. Stuff that Mickey never said a damn thing about when he really was alive. He also gives Rocky a cufflink that was given to him by Rocky Marciano, which I think is too symbolically weighty of a physical talisman to be retconning into the franchise. Rocky and Mickey even exchanges I-love-yous. In the first movie, I thought they were more codependent than genuinely fond of each other.
Fade to some morning as we watch the train go by. We hear “Take You Back,” which is nice, since it wasn’t in IV. There’s a different and more prominent drum riff, but that’s okay. “Gonna Fly Now” was touched up a bit between I, II, and III, as well. But when the opening riff is done, the song abruptly transitions to straight-ahead hip-hop that has nothing to do with “Take You Back.” Mmmm………….It’s difficult for me to be impartial as to whether or not this is effective, as I’ve never been into rap, so the following paragraph is a bit uncertain.
Of course, the idea here was that since Rocky’s life had shifted gears, the soundtrack should similarly shift, a la the transition from “Gonna Fly Now” to “Ear of the Tiger” after the opening montage of III. But in that case, the former gracefully faded out and the latter faded in. Here, “Take You Back” just plain cuts out, and hip-hop starts right up. All that’s missing is the sound of a needle across the record. Or maybe this transition is too depressing to get into the spirit of. Or maybe it’s based on too many plot holes to care about. Or maybe it’s simply because I’m not into rap. Is there a hip-hop fan here? Did hip=hop fans consider this excellent hip-hop? I haven’t look at sales figures, but I’m
pretty sure this song was not much of a hit. **shrug** I dunno.
We get a wide shot of an urban street lined with blue-collar housing. Defininely a step down for the Champ, but it’s not skid row, it’s not the gutter. And the new Chez Balboa is paid for, as Paulie exposits that it’s good that he kept the place (and I’m guessing the Rocky and/or Adrian double-checked the forms Paulie filled out). So this is Paulie’s/Adrian’s old place. Good decision to not put the Balboas back in the apartment dwellings Rocky had in the first movie. That would’ve been as excessive as the bum eye in II, although I’m still not convinced that residuals couldn’t have afforded Rocky something better.
The street is filled with a mob of Rocky fans (they’re all white, for what it’s worth) who cheer as Rocky unloads the car and enters his new home. Rocky just acts embarrassed, as well he should. See what happens when you give in to Adrian so easily?
I’m serious. In the suit’s office, Adrian screamed at Paulie, “We’re here because of YOU!!!” Well, we’re staying here because of YOU, Mrs. Balboa.
And she ain’t done yet. Cut to that night. Adrian answers the phone. It’s G.W. Duke, who asks metaphorically if she’d like to hear an offer that would put big bucks back in Balboa pockets. She tells him off without even hearing the offer or telling him to talk it over with Rocky, not her. Duke, who is sitting in the dark for “artistic” effect, takes it in stride, muttering “Women.” Boo, hiss, etc.
I’ll continue tomorrow or Saturday.
[url="http://myspace.com/handsoftime"]The Hands of Time[/url] |
Edited by - Food on 09/27/2007 10:36:43 PM |
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 09/29/2007 : 8:51:27 PM
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The next morning, Rocky and Paulie walk Junior to school. Junior asks why Dad resumed smoking, and Dad says, “It’s a bad habit that keeps coming back.” That’s no explanation, it’s a cop-out. Dad lectures Junior about the need for street smarts in what for Junior is a new neighborhood. This is believable enough, although Junior’s “What’s a scam?” isn’t. You’re telling me the word “scam” is unknown at private schools?
Paulie says something odd. When Rocky asks for a moment alone with the kid, Paulie says, “I ain’t got no feelings? That’s how wars start.” I have no idea what, if anything, that line is supposed to mean. Woulda been more appropriate (not by much, though) for IV than V.
Rocky sees his kid into the “front door” of the school, which is just a hole in the chain-link fence. He reassures Junior that the two of them are “home team.” That phrase is the only aspect of this movie that would make it into Rocky Balboa, which tells you how Stallone felt about this movie.
In a nice touch, Rocky says, “I used to go this school when I was a kid. Used to have good milk at lunch.” That’s an effective way of conveying Rocky’s palookaness. Do you ever watch reruns of The Andy Griffith Show? That’s the kind of thing Goober would say. Just a throwaway line to depict a simple guy. I like it.
Junior admits to being a little scared, and Rocky says that he was a little scared before every one of his 72 fights. That’s not what he told Adrian in III. He told her, “For the first time in my life, I’m afraid.” We’ll say that Rocky is just reassuring his kid with the kind of polite lie any loving father would use. Junior enters the school, end scene, begin boring subplot. Don’t get me wrong, I can relate to Junior. I was scared when I switched from a suburban middle school in upper middle class Spokane to a middle school in the boondocks of West Virginia (as it turns out, I was right to be, just for the wrong reasons). Still, this is more appropriate for TV teenage drama shows, not a Rocky Balboa movie, and definitely not as the follow-up to the nation-crushing brawls of IV.
Now we get to meet this Rocky’s new opponent: Bulky blond-mulletted Tommy Gunn, played by real-life heavyweight boxer Tommy Morrison (Morrison’s story is far more interesting than this movie. In 1993, he tested positive for HIV. Naturally, this ended his career. But in early 2007, 14 years later, it was revealed that the positive was a false positive. He’s been clean this whole time. I imagine he must have the grandest combination of colossal relief and colossal fury). He introduces himself to Rocky as hailing from Oklahoma, having an impressive 45-1 amateur record, and having just turned pro. He’s about to ask for Rocky’s assistance in furthering his career, when G.W. Duke totally barges into the scene almost as obnoxiously as he did the scene in the airplane hanger. If this was someone’s idea of keeping the movie “lean,” then somebody needs to explain that leanness is not a measure of running time, it’s a measure of the relevance of each scene to the plot. Cramming two plots, even if they will later converge, into one scene without having any current relevance to each other does not make it leaner. Just the opposite, it frees up that much more time to waste on irrelevant crap.
Having totally kicked Tommy Gunn out of the scene, G.W. Duke gives Rocky the offer of fighting Union Kane for a huge payday, with Duke as promoter, of course.
Being a mook is one thing, being a clod is another. Rocky’s “I’m officially expired,” and his misidentification of Mark Twain as a painter aren’t endearing. And his “I ain’t emotionally involved” is too obvious of a harken back to the original movie to have nostalgic value. On the other hand, Rocky does give a believable reaction to Duke’s offer. When Duke whips out a copy of Rocky’s medical report and says it can be worked around easily (Rocky’s question upon seeing it mirrors my own), Rocky goes from skeptical to curious to willing. He even tries to rationalize it to Paulie (or more likely, to himself by addressing it to Paulie).
And it's here where we get the best illustration of why this movie was so disappointing to the audiences. Adrian bursts into the scene from the fish store across the street, literally placing herself between Rocky and Duke. Rocky is unpleasantly surprised to see that she’s resumed working there. She appeals to Duke to leave them alone. I giggle when Duke claps at her drama. Duke talks over Adrian to Rocky, who still seems at least partially willing to take Duke’s offer up. When Duke starts taunting Rocky for being a fighter who won’t fight and a champion who won’t prove it, Rocky’s agitation expresses itself through him shifting from foot to foot with more agitation that he already been doing. It’s a nice touch. But Adrian shouts at Duke, “He’s done fighting!” Rocky’s shifting stops, the fire goes out of his eyes, and Duke snarls, “You are a daaaamn foooooool.” He departs, Paulie departs, Adrian departs, Rocky tells Tommy that he can’t talk now and departs, and the only undeparted character in this scene is Tommy who just stands there.
(Incidentally, Duke keep the same Don King public persona thing going throughout the scene, but I have strong doubts that King himself made private offers to boxers in the same fashion with which he speaks to the public.)
Let’s review: Duke makes million-dollar offer for Rocky to box. Rocky wants to box and wants to make millions. Rocky is up for it and is on the cusp of agreeing to it, giving himself (not to mention the audience) what he wants. Adrian steps in and tells Duke to get lost, leaving Rocky dejected.
In other words: Everyone would’ve been happy if Adrian hadn’t shown up.
It’d be a stretch to say that Adrian is the villain of this movie. But it’s not a stretch at all to say that Adrian is Rocky’s chief impediment of this movie. We want to see Rocky fight and win back his fortune (or at least try to) as much as he does. The movie lets Adrian throw cold water on everyone. Torn between Adrian and Duke, we’re rooting for Rocky to get with Duke.
That CAN’T have been what Stallone had in mind.
[url="http://myspace.com/handsoftime"]The Hands of Time[/url] |
Edited by - Food on 09/29/2007 8:57:23 PM |
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 09/29/2007 : 11:26:41 PM
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In Duke’s limo, Duke evilizes that none of “these bums,” meaning boxers, think straight. He cusses out Union Kane, saying that Kane will do whatever Duke tells him to do because Duke “owns the paper on you, boy.” Duke looks calculating as he mumbles, “All I need is a hook.” Wrong, Mr. Duke. All you need to speak with Balboa someplace where his meddling wife won’t be around. Somewhere like, I dunno, inside that boxing gym you and he were standing in front of just a couple seconds ago.
Cut to the schoolyard, where Junior gets waylaid by a couple punks. They strip him of his coat and take off. Thus begins the boring subplot that I don’t think anybody in the world cared about.
In Mickey’s-now-Rocky’s gym, there’s light whimsy with Paulie hawking minor household items for extra cash, and he and Rocky have a dumb moment about “cojones” (Rocky pronounces the J as a J, even though he heard it from Duke as an H) meaning “Spanish nuts.” This was the same as the Mark Twain bit, and it only makes Rocky and Paulie look like buffoons. Laurel and Hardy, they ain’t.
Tommy Gunn enters the ring to show what he’s got. After refusing head gear like he doesn’t see anything unusual about doing so, he initially takes a few painful-looking shots to the head. But then he goes brutal on his sparring partner and pounds him into jelly. Paulie is gleeful, saying “That’s the odor of opportunity,” mimicking what Duke said to Adrian on the phone. I can’t say it’s unsubtle, as he speaks quietly among everybody else shouting at Tommy to ease up. Paulie may be thrilled, but Rocky is appalled. He chastises Tommy for going ballistic during a routine sparring session and basically dismisses him. Tommy doesn’t seem to understand what he did wrong, and asks Rocky to manage him. I find it unlikely that Tommy could have had 46 amateur fights and a few pro fights without being aware of how sparring sessions are done. Rocky wants nothing to do with managing Tommy or anybody else. In what I think is the nicest tribute to the first movie that this movie offers, he says, “The gentleman that owned this place, now THAT was a manager!”
Cut to Junior walking home sans coat. The girl who was tagging along with his assailants introduces herself, tells him that she ain’t with them, and tells him that he’s got a nice butt. Hm…..That DEFINITELY doesn’t gibe with my experience moving to a lower-class school. **shrug** Maybe she’s just saying that because of his father, I dunno.
That night, Rocky and Paulie exit the gym, depressed at being back where they started. Tommy Gunn appears, and then we get an almost-Japanese-style dubbing giggle. Rocky, with his back to the camera says, “Is there something I can do for you?” while gesturing broadly with his arms. He keeps gesturing for a couple seconds after he says that. He broadly points at the building he just exited and broadly points at Tommy while saying nothing. It’s a kick.
Tommy pours his heart out to Rocky, saying that all he wants is a chance, he’ll do anything for Rocky, etc. Rocky isn’t buying it until Tommy starts stroking Rocky’s ego, saying that he’s a winner and “nobody could say any different!” He says he’s hungry and just wants one shot. Rocky gets thoughtful, and asks if Tommy’s really hungry. When Tommy says yeah, the scene ends on a humorous not when Rocky invites him home for dinner, warning him about Adrian’s viciousness with garlic. Hee hee.
Cut to dinner with the Balboas. The kitchen seems to be a starker contrast to the dining room in Rocky IV than it really is. It seems quite cramped, like they’re living in a studio apartment or something. But actually, it ain’t a bad kitchen. The table seats three just fine, four in a pinch, but a fifth body is puttin’ the squeeze on.
Adrian is aghast at what happened to Junior today. Junior is resigned to his fate of “getting mangled” every day from now on. Paulie recommends a baseball bat to the face. Junior asks Dad to show him how to fight. Adrian says no, but Rocky haltingly says, “I don’t think it would be so bad if I taught him how to throw a few…..deadly punches.” I giggled at that, that was cool.
Junior then asks for Tommy’s council. Having already embarrassed himself in front of Adrian by recommending that Junior pop the bully “like a balloon,” Tommy tells of his childhood spent getting physically abused by his father. He says that his father was the first person he ever knocked out, and every time he gets in the ring, all he sees is his father.
I don’t know if this is some kind of message for the audience, or a way of making Tommy’s later turn for the worse seem more believable, or to give a reason why Rocky would become a form of surrogate father to Tommy, or just something different for its own sake. Whatever the case, it’s never mentioned again.
Tommy’s tale totally terminates table talk. Rocky and Adrian starting clearing the table. Paulie gets the single biggest laugh in the movie. He ain’t rattled by tales of abuse. He tells Junior, “Maybe someday you could punch out your pop.” Just the way he says it, it’s perfectly delivered. Rocky’s too-quick answer helps, too.
Rocky gets the bright idea of putting Tommy up in Junior basement room for the night. Adrian and Junior ain’t happy, but Rocky doesn’t seem to notice. He tells Paulie to put Junior up for the night, inspiring a couple bedwetting gags from Paulie. When we do see the basement room, though, there’s room enough for two people easily. I know. I was the fifth of six kids, and it wasn’t until age 13 when I finally got a room of my own. Later, we’ll see a couch down there, so it’s not like there’s nowhere to lie down. Rocky does say that they haven’t had a chance to get everything in order down there, but I’d think the couch would already be in place.
Rocky is gleefully surprised to see that Junior has arranged part of the basement into a bit of a shrine to his father. He’s impressed that Junior painted and took stuff out of the boxes. I’m impressed that Junior also flew out to Apollo Creed’s grave, dug way down, reclaimed the championship belt, cleaned the dirt and worms off of it, and hung it up in plain view.
Tommy starts chatting with Rocky about Marciano’s cufflink, which Rocky still wears around his neck. Junior looks disappointed that Dad is no longer paying attention to him. This is pretty obviously conveyed, although I think it’s the script, not the actor. It’d be more graceful to have Junior not mind the first couple times Rocky turn Junior out in favor of Tommy, and little by little get more and more irritated with Dad’s disinterest.
This scene has no grace at all. Rocky tunes his son out a second time seconds later when he tries to tell Dad about a “great” girl he met that day (Can’t fault Dad too much. She wasn’t that great). The movie thought we wouldn’t get it the first time. Rocky tells Tommy about “Frankie Fear,” which is another contradiction of the scene in III that I mentioned earlier. Rocky agrees to manage Tommy and teach him everything he knows, which hurts Junior, as Rocky ducked the same request from Junior at the dinner table. Capping off the hamfistedness of the scene, Rocky refers to himself and Tommy as “Home team!” Having been traded to the visiting team, Junior skulks upstairs.
Incidentally, Rocky is hand-gesturing all over the place, I don’t know why. I wonder if this is John Avilsen’s touch, as we didn’t see much of that in the others.
[url="http://myspace.com/handsoftime"]The Hands of Time[/url] |
Edited by - Food on 09/29/2007 11:27:53 PM |
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 09/30/2007 : 7:19:25 PM
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In the schoolyard, Junior gets mugged of his lunch money again. I’ll give the movie this much: These schoolyard scenes are kept very short. Maybe the movie knows it’s not a subplot anyone cares about.
Rocky and Tommy stop at the home of Father Carmine, the priest who gave Rocky out-the-window blessings in the first two movies. He throws a couple more down now. Tommy’s reaction was implausible the first time I saw this, and it still is. When Rocky makes the sign of the gross, Tommy hesitantly does the same with a mildly bewildered look on his face.
You’re telling me an Oklahoma farm boy is unfamiliar with priests giving blessings and making the sign of the cross? Garbage.
Cut to a mural of Jesus. This is the same shot as that which opened the first movie. When we pan down, it’s not Rocky fighting in this sweaty boxing ring, it’s Tommy. I dunno, folks, it’s cool that the movie wants to reconnect with the original after straying so far away from it in II, III, and IV; but I think this is a bit too gratuitous. I guess it would’ve gone down easier had Tommy stayed Rocky’s protégé through to the end of the movie. As it is, it’s just doesn’t strike any resonance with me. **shrug** I dunno.
Tommy takes a bit of a whippin’ until the round ends. In his corner, he tells Rocky that he can’t do it, he’s not ready, etc. But Rocky gives a gym-coach style pep talk (no substance, just pure inspiration). It does the trick, and Tommy pounds his opponent to the canvas. Rocky is so excited that he jumps into the ring before the ref even counts him out, or maybe it’s just silly editing. Also, towards the end of the fight, we begin to hear the main single from this movie’s soundtrack. It’s a hip-hop song called “Go For It.” Again, since I’m not a fan, I don’t know if this is considered a good song by fans of the genre, but I do know that it did not as effectively promote the movie as “Eye of the Tiger” or “Living in America” did.
The song plays over a montage of Tommy’s ascent up the boxing ranks. He defeats a series of opponents at venues of escalating quality, culminating in Madison Square Garden. Intercut with these images are newspaper headlines, Junior trying to get himself in shape, Adrian looking displeased at everything, G.W. Duke watching Tommy’s bouts with great interest (eventually telling someone via phone that he has an idea to get Balboa back in the ring). Rocky also gives Tommy his American flag trunks, which, as Ken mentioned in Rocky IV, likely wouldn’t fit anyway. Rocky and Tommy run up the steps of the Philly Art Museum.
In addition to charting Tommy’s progress, it also abstractly depicts the passage of time.
One newspaper headline says that Tommy is now 11-0, and there are two more headlines of his victories after that. So he’s had 13 fights under Rocky’s management. In real-world boxing time, that’s a couple years. So at the end of the montage, it’s probably ’88 or maybe early ’89. This makes Junior’s Batman t-shirt an anachronism, as the Batman movie didn’t come out ‘til summer ’89.
The song ends at the schoolyard, where we get a nice blooper if you can catch it. When the punks start taunting Junior, one of them addresses him as “Stallone.” It’s at 58:24. It’s hard to notice amidst the crosstalk, but its there. Junior turns the tables on them and punches their lights out, reclaiming his jacket and winning the favor of seemingly the entire student body. They even begin chanting, “Robert! Robert!” He makes up with his chief assailant and runs off to tell Rocky the good news. Uh…wasn’t he on his way to school?
In the gym, Rocky begins to exult at Junior’s victory, but Tommy begins cooling down, so Rocky turns back to Tommy, leaving Junior once again dejected. I don’t know why, but the shot from 59:55 to 59:59, a close-up of Junior face, is real….I dunno, 70s I guess. That Vaseline-smeared-on-the-lens look. I don’t know if there’s a name for it. It makes the shot look like it’s from a different movie altogether. **shrug** No biggie.
Cut to the Balboa home, where Rocky and Tommy watch a TV report of Union Kane become “The new heavyweight champion of the world!” In the couple years since Kane challenged Rocky in the airplane hangar, he’s just now become the heavyweight champion of the world? So he can’t be that good, unless there was a massive intra-bureaucracy debate about who the new champion should be following the retirement of Balboa.
We get a mini-montage of seven more Tommy victories (product placement by ESPN), training sessions (including one with bubbles floating around a la III, only this time blown by Rocky himself), unhappy Junior, and magazine covers featuring Tommy. There’s a short of Adrian as she looks at a newspaper photo of Rocky and Tommy, then uses it to line the birdcage. Gee, that’s subtle. Duke manages to get in with Tommy, posing for photos with him (and Delia Sheppard, an unbelievably gorgeous faux-redhead whose resume is filled with B-grade sex thrillers). Paulie smells trouble and tells Rocky that “the boat is sinking.” Tommy, too, is getting unhappy with the press coverage making Tommy out to be Rocky’s puppet, and begins hanging out with Duke more than Rocky (for the redhead’s affections, I would too).
Throughout all this, there’s a generic hip-hop drum machine riff, and the only discernible lyric is a female voice repeating “Keep it up!” with an echo effect.
The montage ends, and it’s now Christmas at the Balboa home. Rocky wonders where Tommy is, and he wants to give Tommy the Marciano cufflink. Junior and Adrian are typically turned off by it, and Rocky is typical oblivious to it.
In sharp contrast to the modest Balboa Christmas, Duke is showing Tommy Christmas at the top. At a penthouse suite party, he gives Tommy a $20,000 check and advises him to let Duke be his manager so Tommy can enjoy some big paydays. Tommy is uncertain and anxious about it, but Duke assures him the Rocky can still be his trainer, don’t worry about it, put ‘er there, etc.
Back at the Balboa’s, Rocky is almost pathologically in the Christmas spirit, going nuts when Paulie-as-Santa comes down the stairs. Adrian, Paulie, Junior, and Junior’s three friends (two of whom are his former tormentors. I’m not sure I buy that) are totally turned off by it all. Junior rants about how stupid it is. Rocky tells him that it’s important to spend time with his family, to which Adrian and Paulie share Meaningful Glances. When Junior and Friends go downstairs and slam the door (were I one of the friends, I’d make a discreet exit from the home altogether right about now. It’s embarrassing when you’re a guest when domestic drama starts, isn’t it?), Paulie says, “Even I coulda saw this thing happening.” Of course he could’ve. The movie’s been so hamfisted Helen Keller could’ve seen it happening.
In the basement, Sage Stallone gets his Acting Moment. I can’t say it’s bad, but it’s just annoying to listen to a 15-year-old kid with an exaggeratedly fruity-looking earring get all shrill and act all hurt to his father. The upshot of the scene is that Junior spells out in plain English that he’s sick of Dad spending all his time with Tommy and discarding Junior and Adrian.
Then there’s a moment that I enjoy for my own reason. When Junior and Friends leave the house, the dialogue goes like this:
Adrian: Where are you going?
Junior: Out.
Adrian: When will you be back?
Junior: Later.
I’ll be damned if my mother and I hadn’t read those exact lines half a dozen times before this movie came out.
[url="http://myspace.com/handsoftime"]The Hands of Time[/url] |
Edited by - Food on 09/30/2007 7:26:56 PM |
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Greenhornet
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
1791 Posts |
Posted - 10/01/2007 : 12:14:23 PM
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You're doing a good job, Food. I gave up on the Rocky series after three, but I saw bits and pieces of four and five.
"The Queen is testing poisons." CLEOPATRA, 1935 |
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 10/01/2007 : 3:54:21 PM
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Thank you kindly, GH! I’m having a good time with this.
Junior and Friends leave just as G.W. Duke and Tommy arrive. This is another example of cramming two different plots into one scene. Rocky doesn’t turn any of what Junior said over in his mind or discuss it with Adrian, because the other plot just showed up.
Adrian tells Paulie to take care of them, i.e. get rid of them. Paulie is standoffish to Duke, but lets him inside anyway with no objection at all. Sequelitis has made Paulie soft. Duke blusters all over the living room, gives Rocky a bunch of wrapped gifts (“Give ‘em to the neighbors,” since Rocky doesn’t want them), and tells Rocky that Tommy’s ready for a title shot. Rocky seems interested, and Duke implies that with he as promoter and Rocky as trainer, it oughta be smooth sailing for everybody. He then leaves so Tommy can discuss it with Rocky alone.
Rocky is still glad to see Tommy, although Adrian isn’t. Her line, “I don’t wanna make sandwiches” is worth a giggle just for the way she says it, like a five-year-old. He follows Tommy outside to discuss man stuff.
Rocky is amazed by the shiny new car Duke has bought for Tommy, and suggests giving it back. Tommy, of course, ain’t having any of that. Rocky tells him that Duke is trying to drive a wedge between them, and if Tommy can just be patient and stick with Rocky, he’ll get a title shot and “you’ll be able to buy ten of these things.” Tommy answers by parroting Duke’s line about watching the parade go by. This is a nice touch, demonstrating that this naïve farm kid doesn’t know what he’s talking about, he just enjoys what Duke offers and is oblivious to the potential price.
Throughout all of this, the super-hot redhead is interjecting to Tommy that they need to get going. It’s annoying, but it’s tolerable because Delia Sheppard has a fantastically sexy voice; a calm clear voice with no regional accent that I can discern. I bet if she could do British accents, she’d have a lot more and better films to her credit.
Tommy tells Rocky that he wants some serious paydays and isn’t waiting for Rocky anymore and is signing the papers with Duke tomorrow. Rocky gets very agitated and begins spewing out warnings about becoming Duke’s property. It’s almost stream-of-consciousness. He says it all while striding alongside Tommy’s car as Tommy begins driving off. There’s a shot of Tommy as he obviously wrestles with what Rocky is telling him versus the decision that he’s already set on. So it’s the Dark Side of the Force thing.
There is a meaningless bit here that I like for its realism. Towards the end of the discussion, the discussion goes like this:
Tommy: This is a business! And in a business, you need—
Rocky: What, brains?
Tommy: You said that, not me!
Rocky: Is that what you’re sayin’, you’re sayin’ I got no brains?”
I like that bit just for the realism of pettiness that creeps in when tempers flare during a discussion, no matter how serious the issue being discussed is. I like that. It’s believable.
Tommy says that if Rocky wants to train him, fine; if not, fine. But he’s made his choice and that’s that; and he peels out, leaving Rocky in the dust.
Mm….I can’t think of anything too implausible about this scene except that Tommy’s record, which he states is 22-0, would likely have garnered attention from plenty of promoters, not just Duke; especially with all the press coverage we’ve seen that he’s gotten. Rocky can’t be turning all of them away, can he? Who’s been promoting the fights Tommy has already won?
Also, Rocky says that Mickey tried to keep Rocky away from the dirty part of the business, the same as Rocky is trying to do for Tommy. While this doesn’t directly contradict anything, it is a bit different from what Mickey says in the first movie about, “Because he had a manager!” Back then, Mickey seemed to wish that he could’ve cashed in on his talents. And we never saw any signs that Mickey was keeping Rocky away from the dirty part of the business in the sequels. In fact, Mickey’s efforts to keep Rocky away from Clubber Lang in III would imply that Mickey plays the business game pretty well.
Anyway, watching Tommy’s car speed away, Rocky puts his thumbs to his temples and has a flashback of Ivan Drago grabbing him by the throat (while wearing boxing gloves) and clockin’ him full in the face. Rocky winces at the memory. This is another scene that I’m almost certain must’ve been from a discarded story, because it has nothing to do with anything in the story we’re seeing. Even worse, it only reminds us of how much more fun to watch the previous movie was.
Adrian shows up so she can yell at Rocky. Rocky is furious and hurt that Tommy’s gone over to the Dark Side, until Adrian says that Tommy isn’t the problem. Then the cuss-out gets interesting. Here’s the relevant part:
Adrian: It’s you! It’s not him. You can’t live backwards, you can’t turn back the clocks. We live now, we live here!
Rocky, now full-on shouting: Hey Adrian, I know where we live! What do you think, I’m stupid?!? I’m not as dumb as you think I am! You don’t think I can smell it?!? I see where we are! I don’t want this no more! I want something good for the family! I don’t want this!” I don’t want this!” Did I come back here and get my brains beat out for these guys to say, “Hey, there goes Balboa, just another punk from the neighborhood.” I DIDN’T WANT THIS!!!
What makes this interesting is that Rocky is finally doing what everybody in the audience had been doing for the past hour: Faulting Adrian for not letting him be the fighter he is and save the family fortune in the process. Sure, he’s too nice to be more direct about it, and maybe Stallone himself wasn’t aware of it; but still, there’s no other way to interpret this spiel of his.
Adrian screams at him that Tommy makes him feel like a winner, but he’s losing his family (that was in the TV ads, “Rocky, you’re losing your family!”). Then she throws her arms around him and sobs.
The mention of Rocky’s family reminds the movie about the Junior subplot that got kicked out of the scene for the Tommy/Duke subplot. So we cut to a street corner where Rocky and Junior make up unrealistically quickly. This scene totally fails because we know that only reason Rocky sees the error of his ways is not because something Junior said got through to him, but because in the interim, Tommy ditched Rocky. Rocky is making up with Junior not because he now knows better, but because he’s lost his surrogate son and pretty much has no choice but to get back in with his son.
I’m not feeling a thing watching this.
[url="http://myspace.com/handsoftime"]The Hands of Time[/url] |
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 10/02/2007 : 7:50:22 PM
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Cut to Tommy’s title fight. Duke is introducing the boxers. I dunno why. Doesn’t the ring announcer do that? Don King doesn’t introduce his boxers. The dude who says “Let’s get ready to fumble” does that. Tommy, now clad in black robe and trunks (I guess to make illustrate that he’s now been driven to the Dark Side), is soundly booed by the audience. The TV announcer says that they’re “unhappy with Tommy Gunn for leaving Rocky Balboa behind.”
Waitaminit. Tommy told Rocky in the previous scene, “If you wanna train me, then train me. If you don’t, don’t!” And if Rocky wants to keep Tommy away from the seedy aspect of the business, I’d think Rocky would wanted to continue to train Tommy so Rocky could be there when Tommy’d get tempted by such pressures. I figured Rocky declined to train Tommy further because his family didn’t want him to.
In other words: Tommy didn’t leave Balboa, Balboa left Tommy.
In the Balboa den, Rocky is pumped up, while Paulie is rooting for Kane to whip Tommy’s ass. Duke introduces Union Kane, looking at the card in his hand as he does, I dunno why. Did he forget Kane’s name?
The fight begins. Initially Kane looks good, knocking Tommy against the ropes and forcing Tommy to resort to the real-life expedient of hugging him until the ref breaks them up. Happens all the time in real life, never in Rocky movies. But Tommy recovers and begins administering an unholy beating on Kane. Rocky is so pumped by this he begins punching the punching bag that’s hanging in the room. These shots are intercut with the action in the ring to represent synchronicity or something. It ain’t too remarkable, but at least we’re actually seeing Rocky punch something.
Rocky shouts instructions to Tommy. Despite his falling out with Tommy, Rocky is still the teacher who wants to see his prize student succeed. I suppose this is believable.
At 1:12:17, there a one-second shot that I can’t account for. We see three white guys standing side-by-side in the audience all throw their left hands in the air at the same time. Their faces are calm, and their allegiance to Tommy is indicated only by the fact that a spectator doesn’t throw his fist in the air unless his boxer is doing well. It looks for all the world like a Sieg Heil. If so, that’s colossally overkill. If not, then I have no clue what that shot is even doing here.
Tommy knocks Kane to the canvas, Kane is counted out, and Tommy throws his fists in the air in triumph, Paulie and Adrian look glum (not just because Tommy won, but because Rocky is going apes**t with the thrill of it). All this I can buy.
What I absolutely can NOT buy is Duke reaction. He too seems thrilled, although one of his own fighters has just lost all market value. Now, had Kane lost in the ten round or the twelfth round, Kane would’ve come away with market value still reasonably intact. But in the first round?!? His career is over! Quick, how many of Mike Tyson’s first-round knockout victims can you name off the top of your head? Not too many, huh? There’s a reason for that. And there’s a reason why none of them went on to have even semi-illustrious careers!
So Duke shouldn’t be too happy about this. Sure, he should avoid giving the appearance of disappointment, but he seems pretty genuine when he exults from his box seat.
After hoisting the belt over his head*, Tommy begins to thank “the man who made this happen.” Rocky assumed a proud-almost-to-tears expression, but it was obvious even upon first viewing that he ain’t referring to Balboa, he’s referring to Duke. And sure enough, he is. It’s hard to believe this movie was directed by John Avildsen. I wonder if he didn’t let Stallone play with the toys for a bit every now and then. It even gets insulting when the TV announcer says, “A big surprise, at least to me, that the new champion thanked Duke instead of the guy that got him here.” Don’t watch many movies, do you, Mr. Ring Announcer?
* - Is the same belt passes from champion to champion, or are new ones made for each new champ?
The crowd is unhappy that Tommy omitted Balboa. They begin chanting “Rocky, Rocky.” Tommy is miffed by it and brushes them off.
Junior and Adrian give reassurance to Rocky that he is still the champ in the family. Paulie goes out to get skullblasted, and a dejected Rocky eventually follows him.
At the post-fight press conference, Duke introduces Tommy as “the newest, the youngest heavyweight champion of all time, Tommy ‘The Machine’ Gunn!” Anal blood! In his first scene, Tommy says that he’d been fighting since he was 18 and had a 48-0 record. Long after the montage, he tells Rocky that he’s now 22-0, obviously referring to his professional record. Mike Tyson became heavyweight champ at 21. There’s no way Tommy could’ve had 70 fights professional and amateur before turning 22.
The press corps is immediately skeptical of Tommy’s champion status. Duke tries to do damage control by saying that Kane “wasn’t feeling to good,” but that Tommy would’ve whipped him even if Kane was 100%. I actually buy Duke saying this, as Duke probably still wanted to salvage any market value Kane might have; and after such a decisive rout, any cop-out will sound cheap.
Tommy gets increasingly agitated by the press’ hostility. When he angrily shouts, “I just won the title, what more do I have to do?!?” I can sympathize with him. Let him have his moment, asshole press corps. I can also agree with Duke at one point. A pressguy says that Tommy will never be a Rocky Balboa, to which Duke answers that nobody is Rocky Balboa; but in time, Tommy may prove to be an enduring champion in his own right. Which may well have been true. Duke ends the conference when another pressguy takes a potshot at the pretty redhead. FOUL! She didn’t do nothin’, leave her outta this!
Backstage, Tommy gets his big Acting Moment. He screams at Duke for letting the press conference get out of hand like that. I think Tommy Morrison acts this scene pretty well. He believably looks like a brash Oklahoma farm kid throwing a tantrum when things start going wrong and he realizes that he doesn’t have as much of a handle on things as he thought.
Duke tells him that the only way he’ll ever have peace of mind is to get Balboa in the ring and clean his clock. Otherwise, he says, Balboa’s legacy will dog Tommy for his entire career (Duke, of course, only wants to get them into the ring for his own EEE-vil purposes). I can buy this easily, but this is the point in the movie where Tommy becomes every bit as much of a cartoon character as Clubber and Drago; and it’s all the script’s fault. Tommy has something to prove here. How many inspirational movies have there been about somebody no longer living in somebody else’s shadow? Tommy is in just such a spot here, too. He’s won the big payday, but he wants respect more than that. That’s not exactly what you’d call villainous. Tommy wants the peace of mind of showing the world that he can hold his own against any opponent, including former legends and former mentors. Nothing villainous about that, either. So in a better movie, this could’ve been real interesting. Instead, the movie becomes assmaggotry.
[url="http://myspace.com/handsoftime"]The Hands of Time[/url] |
Edited by - Food on 10/02/2007 8:00:26 PM |
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 10/02/2007 : 10:46:15 PM
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At this point, I’m speeding it up. Two reasons: The movie sucks crap from here on in, and tomorrow night the baseball playoffs start, so I ain’t gonna be watching too many movies for the rest of the month.
In Rocky’s favorite hangout spot, Rocky shouts that the pinball flippers ain’t working. In a bar with only one pinball machine and only one celebrity guest using it, I think the tender would’ve said something about it before Rocky dropped a quarter in.
Suddenly, there’s a commotion outside. It’s Tommy and Duke, come to call Rocky out. Rocky goes outside to speak with them, and declines the offer of help from two beer-gutted ballcrawlers, saying “Nah guys. It ain’t no pie-eating contest.” That strikes me as rather impolite coming from Rocky. On the other hand, we never do see exactly how he interacts with the locals at the bar, so maybe that’s typical barroom mock-brutality among friends.
Rocky is surprised that Tommy isn’t out celebrating, and is incredulous at Tommy’s challenge of a fight. I’m incredulous as to Tommy’s phrasing: “I’ll fight you anytime, anyplace, anywhere.” What’s the difference between “anyplace” and “anywhere?”
But Paulie restrains Rocky (who doesn’t really seem to need any restraining), and takes him back inside. Tommy follows him in, screaming at Rocky that he’s sick of being Rocky’s puppet, and that Rocky is only in it for the money. Rocky doesn’t get it. Neither do I. I’d love to know what Duke said to Tommy on the way over to this place.
Rocky tells Tommy that Duke is the Emperor who wants them both on the Dark Side of the Force, and that he doesn’t wanna fight because a lightsaber duel without any actual lightsabers wouldn’t be too much fun for nobody. Not in those words, but it’s hard not to spot the Star Wars parallel.
Rocky refuses the challenge to meet Tommy in the ring. I’ll give Stallone credit: His refusal is as effectively understated as one could make it. He just throws up a hand and says, “Tommy,” and turns away. In his voice, gesture, and expression, you can see the thought balloon saying, “I can’t help you anymore. You’re a lost cause now.”
Tommy tosses a run-away-you-wimp line and seems about to leave, when Paulie cusses him out for betraying Rocky like this. Tommy drops Paulie with one punch. While Rocky sees to Paulie, Duke hisses at Tommy that a broken hand would kill his market value. That evil Duke, huh? He don’t care about Paulie getting what he’s been asking for for five movies, he only cares about Tommy’s ability to continue boxing.
Rocky rises and tells Tommy to step outside. Duke tries to restrain Tommy, naturally, but Tommy is well up for a street brawl. Everybody pours outside. Odd bit just before the fight starts. Duke cautions Tommy that Rocky is a street brawler as opposed to a prize fighter. I don’t think there was ever any mention of that in the previous movies. And Tommy screams at Duke that nobody owns Tommy Gunn and “I want my respect.” Once again, in the context of a sport based on hand-to-hand combat, that’s usually a characteristic reserved for the good guys.
Props to the movie for having Rocky punch first. I’m sure the temptation was there to have Tommy punch first just to have him look like more of a meanie. So it’s a surprise when Rocky goes right for him. Rocky quickly has Tommy on the pavement. He yells that Tommy has betrayed him for all time, etc., and turns away. Duke then yells at Tommy that they should just get out of here now lest this get even more embarrassing. Tommy bounces up, jumps Rocky from behind, then punches out a few spectators. Okay, movie, he’s the bad guy now. We get it!!
This first part of the fight is about one minute long. It’s about as unrealistic of a street fight as the Drago match was an unrealistic boxing match. **shrug** Tommy has Rocky a hair’s breadth from unconsciousness when Rocky starts seeing and hearing in slo-mo, and gets a…**shrug**…near-death experience or something of the Drago fight, his collapse at the fists of Mr. T (Mr. T himself is not seen though), and the burial of Mickey. This scene goes all 2001 on us at one point where we see a B&W Drago saying “If he dies, he dies,” then Rocky’s B&W punched-up face that begins to poor bright red blood. It’s only a second or two, but it’s clear somebody was having a great time cutting loose with the artistry of the project. Then he sees and hears Mickey himself giving a brief peptalk, ending with “Get up, you snuffleupabitch! Cuz Mickey loves ya!”
Stepping just a step or two past my tolerance for cheese, the intro horns of Rocky theme sound, and Rocky lifts his head up in slo-mo. When I first saw this, it was only a couple years after Thomas Magnum spontaneously resurrected in Magnum, P.I. This is about as ridiculous as that.
Rocky shouts at the departing Tommy, “One more round!” Tommy is up for it, and ignores Duke’s “You lose, you’re finished!” This part of the fight is about two minutes long and features:
- Stuff not seen in the ring, like kicks to the gut, rolling on the pavement, throwing each other into stuff, and a Shatnerific rolling kick sort of thing by Rocky.
- Junior shouting (in a strange sort of fast-motion/stop-motion I-can’t-really-explain-it shot) “Knock the bum out, he took my roooom!” Actually, he didn’t take your room. Your father kicked you out of the room and replaced you with him.
- Adrian in her nightgown with a light jacket over it (she’s gonna get pneumonia) being her usually worrywart self.
- Rocky approaching Duke, and Duke saying “Touch me and I’ll sue.”
- Tommy keeping his bulky jacket on the entire time. During the pauses, he had plenty of opportunity to remove the thing.
Eventually Rocky knocks Tommy out, leaving him crumpled on the pavement (I guess Tommy doesn’t have an hallucinatory decreased trainer to invoke, so he stays down). The crowd goes nuts, chanting “Rocky, Rocky,” as the Balboa’s have a family hug. A pair of cops (where have they been during all this?) escort Tommy away. Duke draws Rocky’s attention with “You outclassed the bum!” Rocky looks thoughtful, Adrian says, “Rocky, don’t,” Rocky approaches him, Duke repeats “Touch me and I’ll sue,” and Rocky punches him full force in the gut. Instead of crumpling like a leaf in front of the car he standing beside, Duke flys up in the air and lands on his back on the hood. Political Correctness 101, Professor Balboa: Class warfare trumps the race card.
The reason I mention Adrian’s line is because that’s the last line she gets in the entire franchise. “Rocky, don’t.” Those two words sum up everything that made her increasingly unlikable through the sequels, especially this one.
After possibly causing internal rupture to Duke’s digestive system, Rocky is showered with blessings by Father Carmine. Even Catholic priests love seeing EEE-vil capitalists, even black ones, take potentially lethal force to the gut.
Time for the epilogue. On a sunny day, Rocky and Junior runs up the steps of the Philly Art Museum, where Rocky’s statue stands tall and proud. Rocky talks about this is where it all started, then makes a really big deal about something being in Junior’s ear. Since there were three other points in this movie where Rocky does the whole “What’s this behind your ear magic trick” (I didn’t mention it then because I didn’t think it was that important. I was right.), I’m thinking c’mon, c’mon, c’mon, end already. Rocky pulls out Marciano’s cufflink. Junior samples it as a earring, Rocky says it makes him look like the daughter he’s always wanted, they mock-punch, father-son moment, etc. Blech.
Rocky says, “I been runnin’ up and down* these steps for 20 years, and I never knew there was valuable pictures in this building.” I think this is Stallone’s way of saying to all the tourists who go to that museum simply to re-enact the Rocky scene, “Hey folks, as long as you’re there, you might wanna go inside and check out the exhibits. They’re neat, too.” If that’s the point of that line, I gotta say, that’s pretty cool. Junior says Dad’s gonna love Picasso (I doubt that, kid), and Rocky says “I love almost everybody.” Camera pans back to the statue with the skyline of Philadelphia in the background. A perfect way to end the series…..if only the rest of the movie had been even half as fitting.
* - Down?
The end credits roll over still images from all five Rocky movies in order. The fact that that’s the same way IV’s credits ran makes this seem to say, “This time we’re serious! This is the last one!” The end credit song is an unremarkable 80-style Elton John ballad that sounds more like the end credit song of a Rambo movie (dunno why Rambo movies end with such sappy-ass 80’s ballads). Two interesting points about the end credits:
1. Over still image of the last freeze frame of IV, the credit reads, “We wish to express our gratitude to the Soviet government for granting us the use of their Aeroflot jet.” Perestroika had some hidden benefits, I guess.
2. The very last credit reads, “This film is dedicated to the enduring memory of Jane Oliver.” Oliver was Stallone’s agent, who stayed with Stallone when it looked like he’d never become a famous actor like he wanted to be. He thanks her at the end of all the Rocky movies (and maybe his others too, I haven’t looked). I guess she died.
AFTERTHOUGHTS
Damn, I’d love to know what some of the first-draft storylines were like.
This attempt to bring the Rocky franchise back down to earth only came halfway back down to earth. Yeah, Rocky’s back where he started, they live in Adrian’s old house, she works at a pet store, Junior goes to a public school, and Paulie does…..we never saw what Paulie does. But that’s as far as the movie went in terms of bringing the franchise back down to earth. The only thing brought down to earth in this movie was the setting. The story and the characters are almost as in the clouds as III and IV.
In III and IV, plot holes and implausibilities were more easily tolerated, because those two movies were popcorn spectacle flicks and never pretended to be anything else. So we could just have fun with it. We did have fun with it (I love III, and I like IV, even knowing how silly they are. They’re FUN, DAMMIT!!!). Show me a good time, and I can forgive quite a bit.
But in a movie that is promoted as being a return to the slice-of-life drama that fans of the first one were pining for, plot holes and implausibilities are not acceptable. For a movie to be a statement of/comment on/reflective of reality, it’s gotta be consistent with reality. And this movie’s initial plot, Rocky losing his wealth and being unable to reclaim it, are simply Too. F**kin’. Implausible. To take anything that happens afterward seriously.
As for regular characters, one by one:
Rocky: Initially bummed about losing his wealth, he seems to slip back in the habit pretty quickly. Either his heart never really left, or this is sloppy and oversimplistic characterization.
Adrian: She’s a plot device to keeping Rocky from getting what he wants. She’s no character at all. It’s no joke to say that she’s more of a character posthumously in VI then extantly in V.
Paulie: He gets less screen time here than in any other movie, I think. He gripes a lot, and aside from the initial shouting with Adrian, he’s still the Oscar-the-Grouch type he was in IV.
Junior: Generic movie teenager who resents his father. Not a lousy character, just not an interesting one.
Duke (the trainer): In the opening scene, and that’s it. Again, I like how he would later be treated in VI.
As for the new characters:
George Washington Duke: A cartoon villain from start to finish, only lacking a handlebar moustache to make it complete.
Tommy Gunn: A cipher, really. All we know about him is that he’s from Oklahoma (which never becomes relevant. He may as well be from anywhere), he had an abusive father (which never becomes relevant. He may as well have had abusive classmates), and he likes to box (naturally!). So the only identifying characteristics about him are that he’s a hothead when things don’t go right, and he gets conned by wealthy black dudes who give him the title shot he’s always dreamed of. That’s not really very remarkable.
BOTTOM LINE:
The opening scene sets the stage for a much more interesting story than this. A couple of seemingly out-of-nowhere scenes indicate that such a story was filmed, or at least partially filmed. For whatever reason, it was scrapped in favor of this one. Something happened in production to change it from what it could've been into what it ultimately was.
So Rocky V is a movie that suffers from birth defects.
I wanna know what that discarded story was.
End of dissection. Thank you.
[url="http://myspace.com/handsoftime"]The Hands of Time[/url] |
Edited by - Food on 10/02/2007 10:56:58 PM |
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Neville
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Spain
1590 Posts |
Posted - 10/13/2007 : 3:13:20 PM
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That was very good, Food. Really, I rarely visit this side of the board, but your review kept me reading till the end, and it's not only that I wanted to see Rocky V hanged, drawn and quartered.
I remember watching this film for maybe second or third time shortly before Rocky Balboa showed up on theatres. I tried hard to like it, but a few things were just too much to forgive, like Adrian going back to the pet store or the scene with Paulie as Santa.
You could tell Stallone was trying to be honest with the characters and their feelings, but the cheese kept on getting in the way. And the sudden change of Tommy Gun's attitude just ruined the whole experience. As you say, he is presented on a realistic fashion, but once he "goes the dark side" he becomes rather comic bookish.
But there are at least two moments where I felt rewarded. One is the Tommy Gun fight intercut with Rocky punching stuff. My guess is that Stallone knew the audience needed a boxing match by this time, and since Rocky couldn't fight he came up with this "fight for delegation" idea. It's not that bad on paper, but c'on, the whole montage is hilarious.
And then comes the final street brawl. Not only you get the pleasure of seeing all the bad guys ass-kicked, but Rocky doing seeping kicks from the ground. Man, those would have been helpful against Drago. |
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 10/14/2007 : 01:49:14 AM
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Thank you kindly, Neville!
Your kind words are so uplifting, I have a virtual gift for you.
[url="http://cgi.ebay.com/Rocky-V-Paulie-Santa-Figure-1-of-700_W0QQitemZ180168473860QQihZ008QQcategoryZ348QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem"]Here it is![/url] :D
[url="http://myspace.com/handsoftime"]The Hands of Time[/url] |
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Rocky V
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