Sometimes Film sequels can amaze and excite, Empire Strikes Back and Nutty Professor 2 being prime examples and sometimes they can stink the house out like a smoked mackerel stitched into the back of an enemies chair. Well it might surprise you that after 6 films this isn´t quite the turkey it could so easily have been.

We have had the Rocky Series from its origins in 1975 when Sylvester Stallone wrote and directed the film about the loveable Italian American stereotype given a shot at the World Heavyweight Boxing title through to Rocky 5 when the washed out Rocky trains an up and coming bum similar to himself with horrible results.

Rocky Bilboa follows Rocky after the death of his beloved Adrienne, he is now a popular figure in his local community who has lost all of his money but still retains the dopey charm we all love or despise depending on our viewpoints.

A popular American Sports programme devises a show concept where they pit computerised Heavyweight champions against each other to see who was the best, the result of Rocky´s bout with the current champion Mason 'The Line' Dixon (Proper boxer Antonio Tarver) upsets the champ so much that he decides to challenge the washed out punch drunk italian stallion to an exhibition bout, will Rocky accept, what will his family think, will he survive against this aggressive punching machine?



Cast

Sylvester Stallone ... Rocky Balboa
Burt Young ... Paulie
Antonio Tarver ... Mason 'The Line' Dixon
Geraldine Hughes ... Marie
Milo Ventimiglia ... Robert Balboa Jr.
Tony Burton ... Duke
A.J. Benza ... L.C.
James Francis Kelly III ... Steps
Talia Shire ... Adrian (archive footage)
Lou DiBella ... Himself
Mike Tyson ... Himself
Henry G. Sanders ... Martin
Pedro Lovell ... Spider Rico
Ana Gerena ... Isabel
Angela Boyd ... Angie


My View:

If you are a boxing afficionado you´l like the fact there is a mainstream boxing film starring some real boxers but you will also cringe at the frankly ridiculous action sequences, Rocky continues his lifelong ambition to use his face as a punching bag and the sound effects are hilarious in their ridiculousness, the story itself is decent enough and it does make some sense, but the back story of Rocky fighting for his son´s respect and for a new relationship are a bit forced.

Stallone is as one dimensional as ever whilst Antonio Tarver proves to be a reasonable foil as the champ who you want to dislike but can´t. Burt Young is good as Paulie the irrascible foil to Rocky and the rest of the cast are a bit forgettable.

This is a diverting and enjoyable enough romp through cinematic cliches, it hits the right buttons in places but you do actually not care who wins the fight at the end because really this is closure for Stallone more than a film which makes you want to go out and run up some stairs like the original did.

At just under 7 pounds on Amazon, this is a film worth renting rather than buying, the extras include the standard making of and trailers and tell you nothing new really, overall its a renter rather than a keeper.