Rocky Balboa [Blu-ray]

You know I am actaully begining to enjoy writing reviews and to be honest I feel that this movie just needs as many reviews as it can get because it is an excellent finisher to the series after number 5.

It's funny but I knew what was going to happen in this movie before they wrote it as it's the final (clue here not called Rocky 6 but Rocky Balboa). Its a story of a guy who has long since hung up his gloves and is running a restaurant telling old boxing stories from the good old days and generaly leading a normal relaxed life. He still follows the game so to speak but he feels that he needs to finish off a part of his life which is not quite done. You see him doing an annual pilgramage to all theplaces where he took his wife when they met and he is more or less estranged from his son who is in his shadow.

I love the way that the press and promoters think they are goading him into the exhibition fight (he already decided, you know it I know it). I actually really started to smile when he is meeting his trainer and they go through the speel of "this kid is fast, you do't have that, he has hand speed, you dont have that" etc I just smiled and thought this guy has written a story where he is deliberatley and intentionaly making a point of the fact that he is old and past it, but he is going to give it his heart and soul.
When the rocky training entourage kicked in that was it I was almost in tears I thought "rocky, rocky, rocky". When the fight starts I loved it and although you knew what the outcome was going to be the way that nobody cares at this point and the entire audience is shouting "Rocky, Rocky"etc you just know when Rocky turns around and waves/smiles he has put that part of his life to rest.

Enjoy this movie and please don't think that it is just about boxing, it isn't it never was.

Rocky Balboa is one of cinema's best loved characters, but after the disappointing Rocky V it looked like his time had passed. I'm sure there was much shaking of heads when Stallone announced he was making a sixth installment to the Rocky series. I personally couldn't wait, although I was prepared to be a little disappointed. I was expecting it to be like eating too many sweets, knowing they taste good, but that one too many could make you wish you'd stopped earlier. Not the case though! This is really really good. It's only just over 90 minutes long so it doesn't outstay it's welcome like so many of the big summer blockbusters, this is a very small and personal movie much like the original Rocky. Gone are the over the top excesses of Rocky 3,4 and 5 (enjoyable though they were) and back comes the character driven story of the first two.

Stallone slips effortlessly back into the role of Balboa and reminds the audience of what an underrated actor he is. The story centres very much around Rocky coming to terms with the death of his wife Adrian, and finding very much that although he's liked by almost everyone he meets, he's not really treated with the respect that he fought so hard to earn in his heyday. It's pretty sad at times watching an old favourite character living in such despair, but when the shot at glory presents itself with an exhibition bout against the current champ Mason Dixon, Rocky gets a chance to get back the respect and adulation of old. It works rather well in parallel to Stallone's own career as writer / director / actor, going back to his roots and what he does best rather than what he's remembered for.

The story is great, the acting and the script first rate, and the fight scenes are as realistic as you could possibly hope for. Hats off to Sly, this is one of the best films of the year, and I doubt many people expected that.

When we thought it was long gone, Stallone sought the green light for the production, three years ago after a continous run of poor performances in poor films to see if he could give Rocky his final touch and end the series, the way it should be (not the hacked on ending for Rocky V).

Now Rocky finds himself back at square one, but with a little bit of money which he used to fund his restaurant which he runs, named after his wife, Adrian. Time, unfortunely hasn't been kind to Rocky, who after losing his wife to Ovarian cancer, has lost his greatest support in life. After getting critised for his once famous career, he seeks the tension of the ring, to show not only disgrunnted and controversial heavyweight champion, Mason "The Line" Dixon and his critics, how a real champion wins his fans.........

Rocky Balboa wasn't supposed to work, it could have been a disgraced stumbling Rocky proving he still has it, when he doesn't which could have happened. However, it succeeds, how Rocky regains his inner strengths and willingless to leave his mark on his all-time love affair, boxing which in his life is all that's important to him. A slow, built film, like the comparison to his original work, has little attention to the fight, but more how he copes with grief, sadness, hostality, his growing but emotionally scared friendship again with Paulie and how a special person makes him understand he needs to do this for himself in order to leave it behind where it belongs. Rocky Balboa also shows us why the sequels pulled the franchise down and tore apart the basic forumale, it is to remind people doing your best is good enough for you and you alone. However, the sequels made Rocky ever more determined to keep fighting and he kept winning, for what exactly - the fame and money.

Rocky Balboa is a surprise, but a perfect example of how hard work earns so much more than greasy money.