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Rocky III
As the director and screenwriter of Rocky III, Sylvester Stallone gets a little full of himself, thinking his audience will accept anything at this point and though entertainment is provided here, Stallone asks us to accept an awful lot here.
As this 1982 film opens, we watch the Balboas enjoying the perks of Rocky's 10 successful title defenses, including a huge mansion, endorsement deals, and somewhere between the 2nd film and this one, Adrian seems to have gotten over her obsession with getting Rocky to walk away from the ring forever. Unfortunately, Rocky is blissfully unaware that his title defenses were very carefully orchestrated in order to guarantee victories and when a beast named Clubber Lang (Mr. T.) who wants a shot at the title and can no longer be ignored, Rocky finds his kingdom crumbling around him and when he decides to get it back, he finds help from an unexpected source.
Stallone's screenplay attempts to give equal time to all the characters we have come to love but some so-called storylines do get short shrift. The opening scenes of Rocky dealing with brother-in-law Paulie (Burt Young), jealous of Rocky's success are solved a little too quickly when he offers Paulie a job in his corner and is happy as a clam for the rest of the movie.
I do like that Stallone felt the need to bring fresh blood to the franchise with the introduction of Clubber Lang, a more than worthy opponent for the Italian Stallion and the first fight where they meet is completely believable, even if it's not necessarily what we want to see for Rocky. The devastation that Rocky goes through during the first fight with Lang just makes Rocky's re-match a little hard to swallow. The verbal taunting of the opponents before the match started and Rocky suddenly getting a second wind when he starts verbally abusing Lang just smacked of melodrama to me. Even the usually winning training sequences with new trainer Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) have these two guys, who hated each other for two films, bringing an almost homoerotic quality to these scenes.
Even Talia Shire, who I thought was the best thing about the first film, starts coming off as whiny and annoying here and Hulk Hogan's gratuitous cameo as a pro wrestler named Thunderlips is silly. Bill Conti's music still works.
As the director and screenwriter of Rocky III, Sylvester Stallone gets a little full of himself, thinking his audience will accept anything at this point and though entertainment is provided here, Stallone asks us to accept an awful lot here.
As this 1982 film opens, we watch the Balboas enjoying the perks of Rocky's 10 successful title defenses, including a huge mansion, endorsement deals, and somewhere between the 2nd film and this one, Adrian seems to have gotten over her obsession with getting Rocky to walk away from the ring forever. Unfortunately, Rocky is blissfully unaware that his title defenses were very carefully orchestrated in order to guarantee victories and when a beast named Clubber Lang (Mr. T.) who wants a shot at the title and can no longer be ignored, Rocky finds his kingdom crumbling around him and when he decides to get it back, he finds help from an unexpected source.
Stallone's screenplay attempts to give equal time to all the characters we have come to love but some so-called storylines do get short shrift. The opening scenes of Rocky dealing with brother-in-law Paulie (Burt Young), jealous of Rocky's success are solved a little too quickly when he offers Paulie a job in his corner and is happy as a clam for the rest of the movie.
I do like that Stallone felt the need to bring fresh blood to the franchise with the introduction of Clubber Lang, a more than worthy opponent for the Italian Stallion and the first fight where they meet is completely believable, even if it's not necessarily what we want to see for Rocky. The devastation that Rocky goes through during the first fight with Lang just makes Rocky's re-match a little hard to swallow. The verbal taunting of the opponents before the match started and Rocky suddenly getting a second wind when he starts verbally abusing Lang just smacked of melodrama to me. Even the usually winning training sequences with new trainer Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) have these two guys, who hated each other for two films, bringing an almost homoerotic quality to these scenes.
Even Talia Shire, who I thought was the best thing about the first film, starts coming off as whiny and annoying here and Hulk Hogan's gratuitous cameo as a pro wrestler named Thunderlips is silly. Bill Conti's music still works.