04/10/09 - Rocky IV

Rocky IV (1985, 91 min)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089927/

What a relief of a film following the disappointment of III. We finally get an awesome final fight and an awesome bad guy in the Russian Ivan Drago.

Again, however, we have some of the problems from III. The lead-up to the final fight isn't near as good as what there was in I and II. Also, the dialogue is shaky and corny at times. While I realize you're not supposed to be watching Rocky movies for the dialogue, it still detracted a little bit. I also could've done without the political comments, but maybe that's just me.

As for the main bad guy of Ivan Drago played by Dolph Lundgren, I can't say enough good things. He was so much better than Clubber Lang (Mr. T) and was obviously a lot tougher opponent than Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers). We also, as an audience, hate him even more for killing Apollo since we've grown to like him a lot in the past two movies.

Paulie (played by Burt Young) continues to be extremely annoying. It seems he became a different person in III and IV for some reason. I guess that's supposed to be how fame and money has changed him or something, but his lines always come off as stupid (in the bad way) and a waste of dialogue.

The final fight here is almost on par with what was in II. After the disappointing fight to end III, this was a welcome relief. Going the full 15 rounds to make it more tense (even though done in I and II) was still better than ending it in some earlier round.

Overall I gave the film a 6/10. It was pretty good. However, it wasn't as good as II in two aspects. First, the pre-fight scenes were not nearly as good and second, the last fight wasn't as good (though it came close). Two more left in the series and so far we have: I > II > IV > III.