I wouldn’t say knocked out, but I would say pleasantly surprised.

There is no reason to expect ROCKY BALBOA to be any good. I was managing a theater in Sherman Oaks the Christmas we got ROCKY V, and it stunk the joint up, but good. Audiences left that theater looking betrayed. I am a casual ROCKY fan, so I wasn’t particularly invested, but it was obvious that there was no reason to make that film. Nothing about it worked, from the conceptual level down. There’s no compelling fight for Rocky to face in that movie. And the way the film played out, there was nothing that reminded you of any of what made the films successful in the past. It was depressing, especially when they cut the ending that was the entire ostensible reason for making it, the death of Rocky.

Well, thank god they changed that.

What Stallone has managed to do with ROCKY BALBOA is perfectly bookend the first film. You could probably watch ROCKY and ROCKY BALBOA and nothing in-between and you’d get it. These two films are of a piece in terms of tone and style. ROCKY II was the perfect bridge between character-driven Rocky and blockbuster action-movie Rocky. III and IV are very good at what they do, but they are the blockbuster promise of II fulfilled, totally different types of films, hyperactive comic book superhero movies. Here, Stallone wisely strips Rocky of all of his safety nets and once again positions him as a complete underdog. The result is surprisingly simple and direct, and effective for the most part.

Yes, I saw the film at BNAT. Yes, the film absolutely ripped the roof off the place. But that crowd was there to have a good time, and this is a very easy film to enjoy. It’s also a very easy film to dismantle if you want to. There’s not a lot to it. If you’ve seen the first movie, then you won’t be terribly surprised by anything you see in this one. This film, like Bill Condon’s DREAMGIRLS, is about the possibility of second acts in American lives, and it persuasively makes its case for limitless redemption.

What I enjoyed about the film were the ways it used the past to drive Rocky as a character. Because he still lives in Philadephia, the city he conquered, every single street corner is haunted for him. It’s a city of ghosts, where the past is as alive for him as the present.

And, of course, one particular ghost plays the largest role in the film. Talia Shire may not be in the movie, but Adrian is certainly front and center for the entire running time. I loved the little ways that Rocky honored his wife’s memory. The two turtles in their tank, full-sized now, or the late night trip to the places where they fell in love, or the name of the tiny Italian restaurant Rocky runs now... Adrian is everywhere. Rocky misses her intently, in no large part because she defined him. She was the one who would push him, cheer him on, challenge him, dare him. Without her, he’s basically fallen backwards into the same sort of affable loser who she initially met.

The weakest material in the film as written and acted is between Rocky and his son, played by Milo Ventimiglia, who I would like to point out was born after the first film was released. Ventimiglia’s the most underwritten part of the film, and he never really finds a character to play. He’s embarrassed by his dad, he’s intimidated by his dad, and then he’s proud of his dad. We never see what pushes him from step to step in his feelings. It feels like Stallone set in some scenes with the intent to go back and fill in some gaps on a later draft. He just never got around to filling in those gaps.

This film doesn’t just depend on your nostalgia for much of the punch that it packs, it also comments on that nostalgia. If it bothers you that this film so closely mirrors the structure of the first movie, then you’re basically Paulie (played once again by the nearly-human Burt Young), railing at Rocky for the way he dwells on what was. I like that Stallone writes Paulie to be really caustic this time out. He’s the voice of doubt, the voice of anyone who would say, “Don’t make a sixth ROCKY film. There’s no point.” Paulie’s not particularly likeable in this one, and that’s because the best part of him died with Adrian. He knows it, and it makes him bitter. He’s the person who can’t keep moving forward, the guy who gets stopped cold by life’s punches. Rocky shames him on a regular basis with his basic attitude towards life, and that’s hard to take. When Paulie finally comes around to believe in Rocky again, it feels earned in a way that his son’s storyline never does.

Antonio Tarver has an easy onscreen charisma, and I think Stallone’s done a nice job of giving him something real to play. Mason “The Line” Dixon isn’t a villain the way Drago and Clubber Lang were villains. They did everything short of eat babies onscreen to establish their villain cred, but Dixon’s different. He’s a good fighter who hasn’t had a good fight in recent memory. He might even be a great fighter, but without great opponents, how is he ever going to know? And even though that sounds almost identical to Apollo Creed, they’re nothing alike in terms of presence. Apollo was a preening superstar, a perfect ‘70s celebrity, while Dixon is more of a post-Tyson perfectionist, boring because his fights are all power and knock-outs and less than a minute. I’ve heard some complaints about all the real sports channel stuff that shows up in the film, whether its the use of ESPN or HBO or the name of the casino or whatever. I think we see real sports all the time on television and we know what it looks like now, and Stallone saves himself some headache by using the real stuff instead of having to invent it all. It grounds this Rocky in the real world as much as you can with a film that features a 60 year old in the ring with the heavyweight champion, and it gives the final fight a verisimilitude that...

... a verisimilitude that, ummmm...

... what the fuck am I talking about? It’s a ROCKY movie, goddammit. It’s a real live ROCKY movie. It’s a good ROCKY movie, too. I’m overthinking it. This film makes you feel, and it does it honestly for the most part. It takes some short cuts towards the end, and I’m not totally convinced by the introduction of Marie and her son, but even what I’m not crazy about works on the level that it’s all character material for Stallone to play Rocky.

He’s sparring. As an actor, he spends the whole movie on his feet, sparring, throwing out great bursts of character. It doesn’t matter if anyone else in the movie is any good or not because Sylvester Stallone is in rare form. There is a reason certain people are film icons and other people are just working actors. Stallone has always floundered as a working actor. But he is nearly peerless as a film icon, and here, he strikes just the right pose.

In this moment, thirty years roll away. Every single EYE SEE YOU and STOP OR MY MOM WILL SHOOT rolls away.

And what we are left with as the closing credits roll on ROCKY BALBOA and we watch regular people, one after another after another, all running those same steps where Balboa first found his legs, first went the distance, is the image of someone doing something great, and then doing it again. Just as well. To prove it was no accident.

It was no accident.

And even if I don’t think ROCKY BALBOA the film is one of the year’s best, I think Rocky Balboa, as personified by Stallone in the film, will be one of this year’s enduring and most endearing images.

Drew McWeeny, Los Angeles