What's Next On My List? Rocky V

Welcome to the seventh installment of #StalloneMonth, which I have to say, is my favorite time of the year! In February we look over the filmography of this wonderful actor, 4-5 movies at a time. This has been a fun project, and I will keep on going until I run out of movies to review! As we are still at home in various kind of lockdown, it is the perfect time to go and look at the awesome movies that - despite any ratings on movie sites - have the awesome, the one and only, the inimitable: Sly Stallone. 

Rocky V (1990)

In Rocky fashion, this movie picks up right where the previous one ended, and after his fight with Ivan (Dolph Lundgren), Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) tells Adrian (Talia Shire) that something in him has snapped and he should not fight anymore. Once returned to the US, one manager is hell beant on getting him into the ring, and keeps rattling Rocky's cage, but he never gives him what he wants. 

I really liked this movie, honestly, I did not care for Rocky's new student Tommy (Tommy Morrison), mostly because he was an actual fighter and not an actor. I also know that we were not meant to like him, but the problem was more with the lack of chemistry between him and Rocky. What I did like about the movie is that Rocky managed to escape this hell hole, and now he is forced back into it and the way he acts about it incredible. Leaving this neighborhood slowly changed it, most prominently in movie four, but here the character went back to its roots and with him being a dad this time around, the growth of the character was incredible. I really liked his interactions with Adrian too, as she was now more in charge than he was, and I also loved that money and fame was not what came to define their relationship. Rocky's relationship with his son Robert (Sage Stallone) was also very well developed and the last time Rocky was in this neighborhood he had absolutely no family to speak of. Now, however, he is a father, and I enjoy opening my academic papers and compare this family to that of other Italian Americans that live in certain communities that bound them there. All that said, the franchise came to a stop here, at least for sixteen years. Since then Stallone's son Sage, who played his son on the screen too, sadly passed away, and although he did not play this character once he got older, it was quite amazing to see father and son act next to each other. 

Watch it? This was quite a journey, with one more Rocky movie in the series coming, that I am going to review it next week. I really enjoyed the journey, so much so that at the end of this one I already felt that there is an end coming, despite the Creed series still going strong as far as I know. I also loved in this one how we slowly saw Rocky get into the role of coach that was expanded in the Creed movies. Not all movies were great, and some quite frankly forgot who Rocky was - which this movie remembered beautifully enough to elevate again - showing that you cannot take the neighborhood out of the kid. So having seen the first movie hundreds of times, I can say calmly that this would have been a worthy sequel, even without the movies in between. I do recommend it highly!

Until the next item on my list!