Review by Mark and special guest, Mark's brother, Matt.
This review is in two parts: Before we saw the movie, and after.

Before:

When I first heard about the movie, I thought it was going to be about Rocky's son, about his career or something.

Yeah, like a passing the torch kind of thing. that's what I thought it was going to be too, when I first heard there was going to be a ROCKY VI. Actually, when I first heard there was going to be a ROCKY VI, I thought it was going to be Rocky fighting from a wheelchair or something, or maybe that it was some kind of joke, like TERMINATOR 3, until they actually did make a T3, which was a joke.

What they probably realized was that they could make another torch-passing movie after ROCKY V, because they already had one of those in ROCKY V with him being the coach. for Tommy Gun.

Yeah, but there was no successful passing of the torch in that one, because in the end he had to take Tommy down, you know, "You're not really my son," "Well you're not really my Dad," "Well okay, then I'll beat the crap out of you," sort of thing.

Yeah, but it was successful coaching because he got Tommy to win the title, it just wasn't the happy ending for Tommy: he got beat up in the street fight.

He gave Tommy the breaks, and Tommy totally spit in his face. It was Rocky's intention to pass the torch, in the form of the gloves from Rocky Marcianno, but that's not what ended up happening. because Rocky was rejected by Tommy and he had to face him as the enemy. If ROCKY VI were to have ended with Rocky's son rising up and triumphantly beating the crap out of somebody, that would have been a successful passing of the torch thing. Obviously, that's not going to happen. Rocky is back in the ring again, which means I don't expect Rocky to live through this movie.

Well apparently Sly wanted to kill off Rocky by the end of #5, so I think you're probably right.

Yeah, but Mel Gibson wanted to kill off Riggs in LETHAL WEAPON, like, once or twice, too.

I think he should have done it twice.

Yeah, that would have made for an interesting sequel.

And after we saw the movie:

So what did you think?

I think it was a little short, but they had everything they had to have.

Well, they had everything they had to have for the story they chose to tell. But I was disappointed.

Well, it depends on what story you want. I think it was good inspirational story. It was a good way to end the series.

But they didn't really end it. They said, "Oh well, look at that, a whole bunch of time has passed, people have gone, people are different, but Rocky is still Rocky, and he can still be Rocky. I think they should have not just put the series to rest, I think they should have put Rocky Balboa to rest. I honestly believe that would have made for a more compelling movie, a more impressive dramatic movie, which is what they were all supposed to be. He should have gone the distance and met the end.

It felt a little like the last fight was dragged on.

That's the other thing. That's the reason I didn't think the final fight was the final fight. First of all it was too soon to be the final fight--

You say it was too soon, but that's because it was a short movie.

It was a shorter movie, but it was also too soon in terms of what was going on with Rocky at the time. I mean, everything suddenly turns right, and he wins the fight and everything suddenly turns right yet again.

He didn't win the fight.

He did what he wanted to do, he was successful in the same way he was in the original, but the point is everything turned right too quickly. It didn't go right because things actually took shape in a way that made them go right, it went right because the writers wanted it to.

When you say the movie was too short, it's because there wasn't enough time following the characters. Pauly lost his job, his son quit his job, and instead of including those as significant parts of the story, they just said, "We lost our jobs, now we're behind you, go Rocky."

Yeah, "Dad, I quit my job, go Dad." They set the final fight up the same way Apollo Creed set it up. Apollo Creed thought it was a joke, he thought it was a show the first time out, and so did this kid. And if Rocky had been in his prime like he'd been in that fight, this kid obviously would have been creamed. Rocky would have plowed through this kid like one of the nobodies at the beginning of ROCKY 3!

Yeah, the setup and execution of this fight was the only real plot of this story, there was nothing else worth putting on the screen.

You remember the Clint Eastwood movie, I never actually saw the thing, but this is one of the moments everybody knows, doesn't matter if they've seen it or who they are, where he goes, "In all the excitement, you're thinking did he fire five shots or six. The question you gotta ask is, do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, Punk?" and the guy draws his gun and Clint Eastwood shoots him. This movie was the equivalent of the guy putting up his hands and saying, "You know what, you're right, I don't know, here's my gun, I'm sorry. I surrender." It was weak! I mean, they could have ended ROCKY III like that. Rocky trains, Rocky's happy, everything goes Rocky's way, and he knocks out Clubber Lang in the first match. But he didn't. That's not how that happened. In this one, Rocky had a single fight in the entire movie. I understand was that part of it was Rocky getting back into the ring, and that losing to Mason Dixon would have been totally against the point of the movie...

He did lose.

He didn't lose on his terms. But the proble\m is, we saw that movie, where he went the distance. That was the first one. That's why this one could be so short for a Rocky. Another huge part of every other movie was that they followed everybody's storyline, rather than showing three two-minute scenes each. Apollo creed was pissed off, he gave real reasons for wanting a second match with Balboa, because people were calling him a fake, people were laughing at his kids in school, because no one respected him, and the name of everybody's doubt was Rocky, so he went after Rocky. In this one...

They had about ten minutes of Mason Dixon's story. They played a video game fight, he left his trainers, and went back to his old gym, like Rocky did. But that was the end of his story.

Yeah, who the hell is Mason Dixon? Nobody will remember Mason Dixon! People remember Tommy Gun, Apollo Creed, Mr. T. Nobody really remembers the name Clubber Lang(Mr. T's Character) which is because ROCKY III is, well, now the second weakest in the series.

Well, this one was specifically about Rocky's story. It was specifically called ROCKY BALBOA.

The first one was specifically called ROCKY!

They were focusing only on Rocky's story, that had to be on purpose. It was kind of foolish.

It was clumsy! It was a bad call!

It was a bad call, but they wanted the story to be about Rocky, about his life, about his comeback after his boxing career had ended.

But his life has so many other people's lives attached to it. That's why they spent so much time following Apollo Creed's story in the first and second movies, following his trainer watch Rocky punch meat, studying him. They even took the time to show Mr. T at Rocky's matches in #3, writing things down, studying him, coming out and making a big deal. They took the time to show Ivan Drago being chased around a big top-of-the-line facility, and they took the time to kill Apollo Creed. The first half hour of ROCKY IV was Apollo's movie, in which Rocky was a character. That was the point! If they hadn't taken that full half hour--

Then they wouldn't have needed to make the rest of it two and a half hours?

People wouldn't have needed the rest of that time to be satisfied! They didn't set anything like that up here.

You said before that it was Rocky winning on his terms, but he didn't. Mason Dixon broke his hand in the first round.

That's right.

Rocky took advantage of the other star fighter being injured. That was probably the only reason he was able to go ten rounds, because the other guy was injured, and he couldn't unload on Rocky like he would have. And it was only an hour-forty into it. I expected Rocky to win the fight and have the other guy want a rematch, or Rocky calls the fight on account of Mason breaking his hand. That's what I would expect from Rocky's character.

Exactly, and that would have made for a better movie. A longer one, yes, but a better one. Mason Dixon would have been humiliated by that, and he would have had to have tasted actual humility, and he would have had to wait for his hand to heal before he could schedule a rematch.

And it would be him chasing Rocky for it.

And that would have been an appropriate movie, a way for Rocky to go out on his terms.

And for them to end Rocky's character, in a real fight.

End his character, give them the time to pursue Pauly's story, given them a little more time to pursue Rocky's kid's story, like they actually did in #5, when they actually treated him like a real character, rather than Rocky's little parrot. "Yeah, Dad, I quit my job, I'm with you now, 'cause you told me to grow up so I did."

But he didn't grow up, they didn't show that. He just quit his job and stopped whining. They should have developed him more. And for all that, I want to know why Marie's son had such a big part and yet such a small role.

He had so much screen time, and so little point. He was there to show Rocky being a good guy. If those two characters hadn't been in the movie, it would have been shorter, but it wouldn't have made a difference.

She was a nice cameo, but if that's all she had been, then it would have been just as significant.

She didn't belong in the movie.

Unless they were going to turn it into a romance.

And why the hell would they need a romance in the story? They didn't need a love story in #4, in #5 it was about parenting and passing legacy to an ungrateful little bastard. There were no love-story arcs, after the first and second. They should have wiped that out, and focused more on Rocky Jr. That would have opened so many doors for them. It would have given them a character that could properly put Rocky to rest.

They could have put Pauly to rest, and made Rocky face the loss of his oldest friend, leaving him with only one more person in his life, strengthening his father-son bond out of necessity, and then ended Rocky himself the way he should have ended, given his medical conditions, which were the whole reason he wasn't supposed to fight anymore after the fourth. Every hit he took in the fifth risked his life, but we're supposed to conveniently forget that.

Pauly. He had no more relevance to the story after he loses his job. I think he has three more lines in the rest of the movie.

Pauly losing his job is huge!

One of Rocky's lines is, "When you spend enough time in a place, you become that place," and Pauly said it back to him about his meat packing job, and why he couldn't leave his job.

Pauly is a tragic character. He's always been a tragic character, he's always been the loser, riding everybody's coattails, not really having a self of his own, and I don't know if anyone remembers, but he got fired from the meat-packing plant in the first one, he got a job from Rocky in the third one, lived in their big house in the forth one, and lived with them in their tiny townhouse in the fifth. He didn't have any choice, nowhere else to go. Pauly was a loser, and Pauly's story ended, so why didn't they end Pauly's story?

In a way that they should have ended Pauly. He was walking down a dark alley, depressed, drunk, and they cut out. I expected him to commit suicide.

That's what I thought, too. Rocky should have had the time to mourn Pauly. It would have been more about Rocky's life, and the people in Rocky's life, and mourning pauly, losing Pauly, would have forced Rocky to have more of a relationship with his son, would have forced the movie to follow that more...

And thus more of a story, making it a longer movie.

Not that I wanted to see Pauly die, but they set it up in such a way to ultimately crush him.

And that was the end of his story. He walks down the alleyway, he's depressed, he's drunk, and the next day, he's in the gym helping Rocky train, because Rocky needed another half-trainer.

I'm not necessarily all about the length, but this one was a short movie, and once you remove the thirty to forty minutes that Little Marie and her kid got, it was only an hour long. The reason the others were all three hours was because there was actually something to tell!

There was so much more character depth, more character development.

Real characters, not the plastic son.

He would have been a great part of the story if they'd told his story. But it was about Rocky, Rocky overcoming adversity, overcoming age, getting that last fight out of his system. It was a little inspirational story, about Rocky being a good guy in spite of everything that was happening, his wife died--

Agreed, but, Rocky is a fighter. Rocky's always been a fighter. Rocky risked his marriage in #2 to be a fighter. He risked his life in number four to avenge Apollo, as he did in number five to stick up for Pauly the only way he knew how, by being a fighter. And a fighter doesn't get a last fight out of his system, not Rocky: fighting IS his system! The only way to remove the fight from Rocky is to end Rocky. When the first movie premiered, when nobody knew the name Rocky, the audience was standing up in the theater and cheering him on, you can check the facts on that. No one will be doing that with this movie. That's what I went to see.

It was a cheaper movie. It was a cheap thrill, and it should have been an epic.

You're right. They cheapened Rocky.

It was a hollywood adrenaline shot. It was a short inspirational feel good movie, and that's about the end of it.