It had been a while since my last viewing of any part of the franchise. I gained interest in the higher-rated sequels after discovering how well I could tolerate less cherished Sylvester Stallone movies. When this title came up among Netflix suggestions, I selected it right away. It's leaving soon, I might add.
Right after narrowly losing the bout at the end of the first entry, Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) retires from boxing and marries Adrian (Talia Shire), who's soon expecting. Alas, he has trouble getting and keeping another job he can stand, so he's thinking of returning to the ring. His brother Paulie (Burt Young) supports the idea, but Adrian and trainer Mickey (Burgess Meredith) initially disapprove, because Rocky's right eye took permanent damage last time and he could go fully blind next.
Meanwhile, Muhammad Ali knockoff Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) is the sorest winner this side of My Hero Academia. His last line from Rocky was "There ain't gonna be no rematch," but he vociferously recants within a couple hours. His resolve builds amid the kind of hate mail I associate with the Internet, by spectators convinced that the fight was rigged. Against the advice of everyone he knows, he publicly taunts Rocky toward a rematch months later. This time, neither contender wants the victor to be decided by vote.
While Creed had seemed almost friendly before in giving a chance to a lesser-known prizefighter, his animosity, however understandable in origin, has so inflated that I can barely believe the duo would become friends in the threequel. It occurs to me that Stallone flicks used to have disproportionately minority villains. We don't see Rocky fight a White guy until his fourth outing. I'm not saying Stallone himself is or was racist, but let's be glad for the Creed subseries, eh?
Rocky's no jerk in the modern sense, but he is quite the fool. He can barely read, he drives and parks even worse than I do, he spends lavishly without being rich, his sweet talk to Adrian is inanely repetitive, he doesn't take training as seriously as Mickey, and acquaintances question his decisions in almost every scene. They tend to chalk it up to head trauma more than undereducation. Well, at least he has company.
I'm undecided on how to rank this. On one hand, it's largely a predictable retread. OTOH, it ups the emotional stakes if not the complexity. I don't remember much about R1 besides the training montage and the grand finale, and people rarely talk about any other part.
On balance, R2 feels pretty good to me. Maybe I'll check out more of the series sometime, tho not R5.
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