Review: “ROCKY BALBOA”

Yo, Rocky’s back for one last round.

First James Bond gets back to basics, now, 30 years after the Philly southpaw came out swinging, Sylvester Stallone has returned to Rocky's humble roots with a stripped down edition that comes close to capturing the soul of the original -- which I saw on TV and rental.

The first one, with a budget of less than $1 million, was a smash hit -- the 78th greatest movie by the AFI, pulling in more than $56 million in 1976 dollars. Reportedly written over a weekend, it won an Oscar for Best Picture and became one of the smash hits of the‘70s.

The only installment I saw in theaters was 1990’s torturous “Rocky V.” Afterwards, I swore I’d never do it again. But I went and did it...

Dropping the Roman numerals, "Rocky Balboa" -- the sixth in the series-- defies all expectations with a low-key production. Just as he did back in 1976, Rocky -- and by extension Stallone -- is climbing into the ring as a man with something to prove. And for the first time in thirty years, you just might find yourself cheering him on.

With his beloved Adrian (Talia Shire’s alive and well) having passed away of cancer, Rocky trudges along the streets of his South Philly neighborhood like a man who's been beaten down by the ravages of time and bittersweet memories of all-too-distant glories.

He's only too happy to regale patrons at his eatery, Adrian's, with those stories, but his habit of living in the past is beginning to grate on his old brother-in-law Paulie (Burt Young, who's been there for all six rounds), who's no longer wants to accompany Rocky on those ritual tours through his old haunts. Rocky also tries to spend quality time with his grown son (Milo Ventimiglia), but the young man wishes to climb out from under his famous father's shadow.

Fortunately the Rocko we know and love snaps back into form when an installment of ESPN's "Man vs. Machine," which pits two athletes from different eras against each other in a computer-simulated competition, has current heavyweight champ Mason "The Line" Dixon (real-life boxer Antonio Tarver) going up against Balboa in a hypothetical bout that gives the Italian Stallion the decision. Keep in mind that Mason isn’t a villain. Just a guy with his own problems, being unpopular for having faced no real contenders in his rise to the heavy weight title. He’s Rocky in Rocky III all over again, but the movie isn’t about him.

Anywho, Rocky's back in training for the real thing, calcified joints and all, much to the embarrassment of Robert. Though everyone tells him he's likely to be murderized, the sixty-something Italian Stallion quietly accepts the challenge, throws himself into a few weeks of training and steps in the ring, with the philosophy, "It's not how hard you hit, but how much you can take and stay on your feet."

Yes, it's improbable, but the premise of the original "Rocky" was almost as hare-brained, and its lure of the impossible dream and appeal of not so much winning but "going the distance" is what made it such an influential, often imitated classic.

Conti’s score kicks in full bore for the expected training montage. Once again, good ol' Rocko pounds away at frozen slabs of beef, knocks back a glass of raw eggs and, of course, runs up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. After that, it's off to Las Vegas for the big showdown with Dixon.

The one area in which Stallone has consistently shined as director of the “Rocky” films is in his well choreographed and edited fight sequences. He repeats the feat in “Balboa,” giving us our money's worth in a bloody celebration of brute stamina. While the ending of the fight is never really in doubt, it's surprising how much genuine tension Stallone manages to wring out of this unlikely battle, in which both fighters unload on each other with everything they've got.

Stallone's grass-roots approach works well. Passing on studio sets in favor of actual locations with extensive handheld camerawork (incorporating both 35mm and high-def film), Stallone reconnects with a lot of what made the character so endearing in the first place. He shows a discreet use of foreground and background to highlight or underline emotional moments. A scene in which father and son confront one another may be Stallone's finest moment on film.

In addition to all the familiar faces -- Tony Burton also returns as Balboa corner man, Duke -- Irish actress Geraldine Hughes does affecting work as the grown-up Marie (played three decades ago by Jodi Letitizia), now a hard-working single mother of a Steps, a teenage thug in training (James Francis Kelly III), whom Rock has taken under his wing out of the goodness of his big heart. He also offers Marie a job; this friendship hints at elements of romance, but remains touchingly tactful.

Of course, Rocky wouldn't be Rocky without that signature theme, and Conti has turned it into elegiac lament for the first half of the picture before cranking it up to full throttle for that last hurrah, as well as backing amusing end-credits footage of tourists from all over re-enacting the iconic running up of those Philadelphia Museum of Art steps.

In interviews, Stallone has said that he intends “Rocky Balboa” to be a bookend to the original film and, as promised, viewers can leap directly from that movie to this one without having to make time for the other four installments. Aside from a passing reference to his victory over Apollo Creed and brief glimpses of Clubber Lang and Ivan Drago, the events of “Rockys” II-IV go unmentioned, while the, um, disliked “Rocky V” has been erased from continuity, along with any mention of Rocky's supposed brain damage. “Rocky Balboa” is also filled with numerous visual cues and references to the '76 picture. The result is a film that's as much a nostalgia trip for the audience as it is for its star.

The goodwill generated by this approach carries viewers through the movie's dead spots, including one too many visits to Adrian’s grave, Rocky's awkward attempts to bond with Steps, and an underwritten storyline involving Mason Dixon's own crisis of confidence. A subplot about Dixon and his manager also suddenly disappears. It's in these scenes that Stallone's limitations as a writer and director show up. After thirty years he knows his own character inside and out, but he still struggles to write convincing dialogue for anyone other than Rocky.

The film isn’t about Rocky carrying on conversations, though. The script comes from an honest place, and the characters have real emotional centers. On its own terms, “Rocky Balboa” is only a modestly entertaining movie, but taken in context, it's an entirely satisfying conclusion to the “Rocky” saga. It's not so much a sequel or even a remake for a new generation of moviegoers as it's a retranslation for the old one: an irresistible statement that "Yo, life ain't over till it's over."

Will we be seeing a weathered Rambo brought back to basics next?