A misstep. And it's flawed by a few production decisions.

The misstep is the decision to take away virtually everything Rocky had gained in his journey so far.

The flaws - the music being majority rap. The flashback to Mickey. The lack of nuance - everything is just so heavy-handed.

One throughpoint of Stallone's career is that he at least understood what people wanted from their films. And he wrote for them rather than the critics...

I can't think what Stallone was trying to do with this and whether it was lost in the edit as Rocky IV seemed to be... Who knows. I don't expect this one to get the later life Director's Cut like IV did.

Once again though we get a mashup of what was going on in Stallone's world versus what was going on with the world at large. Tyson had emerged in the 5 years since IV and the rise/fall of Mike is mirrored somewhat in Tommy Gunn (Little did anyone know what reality had in store for Tommy just a few years later).

And Stallone's own career stall was beginning to weigh on his thinking... A few years later he would recreate his persona and a decade & a half later he would go a long way to rectify this film as being the end of an anthology for the ages.

Worst of the series for sure but Rocky has built up a huge amount of goodwill by this point that all is forgiven.


5.5/10