Rocky Balboa

Rocky Balboa, directed by Sylvester Stallone,

Rocky, directed by Sylvester Stallone

I am a big fan of the Rocky films and I was so looking forward to seeing one come to the big screen at the commodore cinema in Aberystwyth in early 2006. The same narrative technqiues go straight back to the first one which was orginally intended by Sylvester Stallone, because with the first, it was about himself and his background. The original had the inevitable deeper and more inspired meaning to his character and obstacles.

So here we have the recent addition to the franchise and the plot centres around the aftermath of Adrian's death, Rocky owns and works in a restaurant which in the first intance makes us believe he is happy and content with telling the customers stories of his boxing days. Apart from Rocky other established characters are focused upon such as his brother in law Pauli who is still a grumpy and depressing character. Rocky's son has grown up and works as a businessman for a successful company but at the beginning of the movie Rocky and his son's relationship is strained. His son is embarrassed, hating the fact that Rocky steals his limelight and taking away his individuality. As these parallel stories evolve at the beginning of the film, we have the event that shifts into disequilibrium, and the chain of events that follow whereby at the end we see Rocky back in the ring for a final fight against Mason `The Line' Dixon.


The reason for the confrontation, is that there is a virtual boxing game involving opponents from different eras, and the recent showdown was between Rocky and the new and upcoming boxing talent of Mason Dixon. The result showed that Rocky would win and this may be the pivotal moment that gets the narrative flowing. However, even before that, the audience begins to see his inner demons start to seep through and the urge to get back in the ring. With his inner demons and in connecting that to the end of the movie, you see its purpose. The inner ideological meaning is that Rocky was not fighting to prove his status as a boxer, he was fighting for Adrian who died of stomach cancer. When he was in the ring and punching his opponent Mason, he was getting rid of the hurt from losing her, releasing his aggression and attacking the cancer face on. What had hurt Adrian he could not prevent and the only place to release his heartache was in the ring.


So as the audience goes through Rocky's journey, there is tension between him and his son, Pauli loses his job and Rocky himself forges a relationship with the young Marie who appeared in the first film. Suddenly these characters are thrown together forging the team that to enable him to go up against his opponent. Within the final fight, the same action, quick cut and zoom techniques around the boxing ring does justice to the Rocky franchise and creates the ultimate fight adrenaline that is not so easily accomplished in other boxing films. With Rocky you are on his side and watching your hero get hurt gets the blood racing, this goes into an overload when you see him fight back, when he gets knocked down it teaches us to get straight back up because if you just lay there, you would be lost forever.


With Sylvester Stallone's new Rocky film the audience is with him every step of the way and when the music plays at the beginning you have yet again entered into his world. At the end of the film there is a nicely ended resolution giving us as an audience a brilliant and final chapter.