No Future

If you have seen Rocky, you've seen Rocky II. Stallone returns in a mimeograph of his last performance, mumbling ethnic wisdom and punching out his opponents for God, family, and country.

As you sink back into your chair and watch the opening sequence of the new film, you'll relive the excitement of the old movie's climactic fight scene. Later in Rocky II, you'll feel those same chills as you realize you're going to see that same fight for the third time in two movies. They couldn't let a good fight end after 15 rounds, so you'll sit through 45. The third time around, you'll even see it in show-motion streams of sweat and blood.

Still handsome--at least when his face isn't covered in blood, bruise marks, or bandages--Stallone clearly has trouble the second time around finding any kind of story for his lovable character. Instead of developing Rocky into a more complex hero than the golden-hearted boxer from the slums of Rocky, Stallone blankly trots out the well-worn gimmicks that made his last movie a success. Meet Cuff and Link, Rocky's turtles, for the second time. See Rocky run through downtown Philadelphia again--this time followed by a ragtag of urchins that turns him into an Italian Pied Piper. Listen to Talia Shire tell Stallone she loves him three times in the same scene.

Shire fails to repeat her sensitive performance from Rocky; she tends to spend most of her time staring dumbly at Stallone's mashed face or dead-panning hokey lines. As a solicitous wife concerned about her husband's battered body, she had opposed his return to the ring. But for no reason, after recovering from a coma caused by complications in childbirth (little Rockies for the next movie), she tells him all she wants him to do is "Win!" Maybe it's to be expected, but you'd hope Stallone could have come up with something more believable.

Egging Rocky on as well is his trainer Burgess Meredith, who looks like he'd been in one too many fights himself. Meredith mugs his way through a tailor-made role, but his is still the most enjoyable performance of the film.

The familiar characters of Rocky move through a full circle from the emotional highpoint of Rocky's first fight against the Muhammad Ali-figure of his world-champion opponent. Rocky tries doing commercials, getting a white-collar job, getting his old meat-hauling job, and even toting water in the old gym. These scenes depart most from the old Rocky, but they're also the most deadly in the new film. Sure enough, eventually both Rocky's instincts and the need for something more exciting to end the movie with than Rocky staring at his comatose wife force Stallone to backtrack to his last closing scene--the one that make Rocky so popular.

The final fight is pretty exciting, no matter how bad the rest of the movie may be. So your best bet is to arrive an hour-and-a-half late, catch the fight at the end, sit through the break between showings and watch the initial bout to refresh your memory. Then you'll be ready for Rocky III--"the story continues a little more."