Rocky Balboa
By Peter John Gardner
While making the rounds in the press junkets for the release of Rocky Balboa, the sixth and final (yeah, right) installment in the franchise, Stallone insisted that he was never happy with the way Rocky V ended the series, and he wanted to give the character a proper sendoff. After enduring every damn movie this guy has ever made, I'm inclined to think that it was more of a cash grabbing venture after the atrocities that Stallone's been making the past few years. Either way, I feel that this is the best Rocky since the first one.
Sixteen years after Rocky V, we're brought back into the world of the Italian Stallion. Right from the get-go, we learn that Adrian's been dead for several years (sad face "yo"), and Rocky's been living quietly in Philadelphia where he runs a small Italian restaurant. Pauly's still around being the same piss-prick he's been for the past five films, and Rocky's son is trying to live outside his father's shadow by quietly climbing the corporate ladder.
Side note: The guy that plays Rocky's son is the same guy that plays Peter Petrelli on "Heroes", which I feel is an inspired choice because they both have the same "Is he or isn't he retarded?" vibe to them.
One night, ESPN does a computer generated "virtual match" between the current champ (Mason "The Line" Dixon....yes, that's the villain's name) and ol' Rocko. CGI Rock prevails and the match inspires the real Rocky to get back into the ring. Rock's a fighter, always has been, always will be. That's what he does.
To its credit, the film does take Stallone's age into account and works it into the plot. Everyone keeps telling Balboa that he's too old and that his body is no condition to fight anymore...and what's a Rocky film without a montage about overcoming the odds? I hate to admit this publicly, but when I saw this in theaters, a huge smile appeared on my face when the training montage kicked in and the Rocky theme started playing. It provided a cheap thrill for my inner child the same way the trailers for the Star Wars prequels did until I saw the actual movies.
After watching all of these movies, it's easy to see the Balboa/Stallone parallel throughout the course of his career. Likeable underdog hits the big time, makes some outlandish movies/fights, and then kinda fades away when the public loses interest. This is the only role of Stallone's that he does a really good job of acting in which is fine considering Rocky might simply be a metaphor for himself.
Training montage, big fight at the end, blah, blah, blah. It's a Rocky movie. You know how it ends.
This movie is about setting things right in order to find piece of mind. Rocky's past haunts him throughout the film, and fighting one last time is the only way to successfully clear the skeletons out of his closet. Stallone himself was unhappy with the way five ended, so sixteen years later he rectified it. From the outset of the project, my mission was always to find some sort of enlightenment or piece of mind from these terrible movies, and to my surprise I did. My father, being the smart Googler that he is, found me through Project Stallone and contacted me. After twelve years of not talking, I felt that now was the right time to set things straight and tie up loose ends. As bizarre as it sounds, Project Stallone was a catalyst for me to start taking baby steps to establish a relationship with my father again, and you know what? It's been going great. When I stopped talking to him, I was still a kid, and now I'm (arguably) a man, and it's been like meeting a whole new person. We're both adults now and we treat each other as such. Like I said, baby steps, so I'm taking things very slow, but it's a start, and I don't know if this would've happened without this silly little project of mine.
At the twilight of this project with only one more film to go, I can honestly say that I've gained some piece of mind from this thing. It's been a weird journey that I wasn't expecting from an idea that was initially meant to just make my friends laugh. I'm beginning to clear out issues that have been bugging me for years, and I feel like a better person for it.
I can't think of a better way to end this piece than with a simple, "Yo".
