Movie Review : Rocky IV (1985)

Sylvester Stallone is the greatest meta-actor alive. His fans (self included) will follow him into hellfire no matter what movie he plays in, because they are interested in the character of Stallone more than the character he actually portrays on screen. I don't know a Stallone fan who doesn't think Rocky Balboa and John Rambo aren't alternate personalities of the man. It's a trait he oddly shares with the likes of Humphrey Bogart and Rudolph Valentino. To my greatest pleasure, my nephew Emile was introduced to the joys of Sylvester Stallone worship by his father and wanted to share a viewing of Stallone's wild, ludicrous and excellent take on the cold war, ROCKY IV with me. How could have I said no, people? HOW COULD HAVE I SAID NO?

If you've been living under a rock for the last three decades, you've been missing out on several great Stallone movies, but ROCKY IV is top 5. An amateur world champion from the Soviet Union Ivan Drago (the great Dolph Lundgren) is venturing to America to prove the physical, biological and moral superiority of the USSR. He does so by straight out killing Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) in the ring and challenging heavyweight world champion Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) to a 15 rounds exhibition in Russia. Stall...hem....I mean Rocky gladly obliges because THERE IS NO EASY WAY OUT, BABY *! The rest is history.

I don't know of a movie that exposes the irrational fears of the cold war more bluntly than ROCKY IV. See, Sylvester Stallone is a deceptively good screenwriter. He understands symbolism well and knows what people want. Ivan Drago is not exactly a realistic portrait of a Russian, but he is the embodiment of everything American people feared and hated about the USSR: he's an Aryan, his wife is an Aryan, he takes steroids, he hates America, he would do anything to show he is superior to America, he has the power of a country behind him etc. He is a political entity more than he is a boxer. Rocky Balboa in ROCKY IV is America. He is the smaller, more honest and especially more hardworking man, who dares to stand in the face of adversity. Because 'murica. 

One of the most ridiculous/iconic montages of the eighties. It still pumps a sucker up.

So why does that make Sylvester Stallone a good screenwriter? You get so emotionally blinded by how awesome Rocky is, that you forget it's not really a boxing movie. I mean it is, but what you see on screen is a jumbled montage of very poor boxing technique. Rocky barely uses his lead hand and lands one or two combinations with both hands in the entire series **. Realistic boxing scenes are hard to pull off in cinema, but in the Rocky series, it's particularly bad, like it doesn't care about its own theme. You witness the fight but not the boxing and you're too busy caring about Rocky to actually care. Maybe Sylvester Stallone's slapstick genius of flailing around like he's about to have a brain aneurysm every time Dolph Lundgren hits him with a punch has something to do with it too. I've never been more convinced Russians were evil than when I watched ROCKY IV. Even today, I'm having doubts about secret labs and Aryan boxers every time I watch it.

I am one of the most rabid defenders of Sylvester Stallone's career alive and I believe ROCKY IV is hard evidence of his cultural legacy. It's the only movie in the series where Stallone indulged his strange patriotic urges using his iconic boxer character. One could argue that every Rocky movie is not about boxing, but ROCKY IV is probably the one that's the LEAST about it. Think about it, why would the promotional poster of the movie feature THE FREAKIN' ENDING ON IT if it mattered? ROCKY IV was about being American in the cold war and proving the American way would prevail because it's the honest way. It's one of the last believable ***, endearing political American underdog movies.

* I know this is the original video by Robert Tepper and has no Rocky footage, but it was so enthralling I couldn't NOT put it.

** I haven't watched the last one, where Antonio Tarver is some sort of racist joke.

*** I mean, emotionally speaking.