It takes a certain courage to press onward toward a predictable blizzard of derision, and another sort of courage to alter the course sufficient degrees to give the slip to some of the faithful. After a behind-the-credits recap of the Moscow fight -- uproarious in its effect -- Stallone relocates Rocky under a shower tap in the locker room, looking stunningly like a Greek statue (i.e., naked). However, there are "physical complications." Tremors. Irreversible brain damage. Enforced retirement. And not just physical ones, but financial ones as well. Mismanagement. Monkey business. Bankruptcy. More self-consciously "mythic" than in any prior Rocky, Stallone here brings the King low, quite preposterously low for so thoroughly beloved a folk hero. (Okay, he doesn't like to do TV commercials -- see Rocky III -- but how about a book contract, maybe even movie rights?) He brings him, geographically, back all the way to his humble beginnings (back also to his original director, John G. Avildsen, lately exiled to the Karate Kid series), where he prowls the "mythic" avenues of death-and-rebirth, betrayal-and-retribution, father-and-son. But if this, as already stated, took courage, it also took idiocy. The particulars of the story are, as usual, horribly, laughably wrong; the fights are as ridiculous and as monotonous as ever; and anything remotely recognizable as reality (e.g., the caricature of the flag-waving, teeth-flashing fight promoter Don King) is merely unimaginative. With Tommy Morrison and Sage Stallone. (1990) — Duncan Shepherd
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