The Direct to Video Connoisseur
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Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Rocky IV (1985)
This is our 800th post, which isn't the biggest milestone, but it is on an even hundred, and worth celebrating I think. And what better flick to look at than one that, while it wasn't itself a DTV flick, launched the career of the man we've come to know of as the Babe Ruth of DTV, Dolph Lundgren. Even today, when most people think of Dolph, they think Ivan Drago-- though they often get the famous line wrong. For the record, it's "I must break you", which I imagine Stallone wrote in to drive home the point that Drago didn't have any free will under the Soviet Union-- no "will", all "must".
Rocky IV has Sylvester Stallone back as his iconic sports hero, this time taking a break after beating Clubber Lang. A Soviet heavy weight named Ivan Drago has been making news, and Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) sees this as a last chance at glory. Drago ends up beating him to death in the ring, so Stallone goes on a one-man crusade to take down Drago, and maybe end the Cold War while he's at it.
While this was the highest grossing of Stallone's Rocky films, there's definitely a feeling of shark jumping, especially considering how over the top (no pun intended) so much of it is. Stallone incorporates a montage of clips from the previous films as Rocky reflects on how far he's come, and I think we can't help doing the same. Everything the first one was-- real, compelling, and not out of proportion with what we associate with the real world, while still being big and theatrical-- this one wasn't-- it was always out of proportion and overly theatrical, so by the time we get to the end and Rocky is essentially ending the Cold War in his post fight interview, we aren't surprised by the ridiculousity. But it did have enough of what made the first Rocky so endearing and so successful, in particular Stallone's down-to-Earth working class hero that we can't help but root for, even if we're surrounded by jingoism and silly larger-than-life dramatizations. In the end, shark jumping or no, this is a fun flick in the Rocky series.
No, he wasn't the star, far from it, and no, this wasn't his first big screen role, he had a small part in A View to a Kill, but this is the one that put Dolph on the map. Unfortunately his next film, Masters of the Universe, was a colossal flop, and the one two after that The Punisher, was stuck in limbo and didn't get a US theatrical release (Red Scorpion was in between those two). So began his journey into DTV-dom, with only a blip coming with Universal Soldier, though that film was more a Van Damme vehicle than it was a Dolph flick. We always talk about movies as gems that fell through the cracks when Hollywood ignored them, and here we have the same thing, only with an actor-- their loss is our gain. Who'd'a thunk that a role in a Stallone flick would lead to the greatest DTV action career in history? Here's to you Dolph Lundgren, you're one of the great ones.
It's hard for me to go back to when I was six and get a good grasp on what Stallone and Rocky meant at the time in 1985. I remember the Cold War scare. Though it was near the end, it was still very palpable, and I remember fearing that the Soviets would invade and take my neighborhood hostage. But it's also important to remember that the 80s was Stallone's decade. Schwarzenegger had some good ones then too, but he really came on in the 90s and replaced Stallone then. With that in mind, this is a Stallone at the height of his popularity, revisiting the character that made him most famous. I had this sense as I watched the scene where Rocky looked back on where he came from, and thought about how he needed to get back down to Earth, that his character was trying to speak to Stallone, telling him that this ride won't go on forever, but in his hubris he didn't listen, and in just five short years Rocky V came out, and two years after that Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot. I think the difference between Stallone and Rocky, is that Rocky never felt comfortable as a star, while Stallone craved it.
Getting back to Rocky, the first film, I noticed on Tumblr recently that a kid (like 21 or 22) was talking about the travesty that was the 1977 Oscars, because Rocky won for best picture over Taxi Driver. It's interesting how perceptions of both films have changed over time, especially for kids born in the late 80s early 90s. They've essentially only grown up with Rocky as a cliched sports film paradigm, and have had so many "inspired by a true story" sentimentality porn fests shoved down their throats, that they can't conceive of Rocky as an original and endearing concept, let alone comprehend the film's social and artistic significance at the time. It's kind of hard for us Gen X-ers to comprehend it too, because Taxi Driver just seems so much more sui generis, but at least we have some perspective, we remember when both Rocky as a character, and Stallone as a person, were much more relevant in Hollywood, and that's something kids today can't conceive of. Rocky will always be The Blind Side or Seabiscuit to them, while Taxi Driver will always be Travis Bickle kicking ass.
The soundtrack on this is amazing. First and foremost, you have Survivor's "Burning Heart". I'm not ashamed to admit that that's on my iPod in my exercise mix alongside Loverboy's "Turn Me Loose". Just a fantastic montage song, the kind that makes you wish by the end of it that you'd just done 6 months worth of exercise in 3 minutes. Then John Cafferty has "Hearts On Fire". You can never go wrong with John Cafferty. Also we have some Go West, with "One Way Street", and 80s soundtrack mainstay Kenny Loggins, who teams up with Gladys Knight for "Double or Nothing". One of my personal favorites was "No Easy Way Out", which was performed by Robert Tepper-- There's no easy way out/there's no short cut home! Finally, I can't go over the Rocky IV soundtrack without mentioning James Brown's "Living with a Hernia"-- er, I mean "Living in America"-- which was written by Dan Hartman of "I Can Dream About You" fame.
I don't know why I included a shot of Stallone in that Hugo Boss sweatshirt above, I just thought it was so cool. I wish they made sweatshirts like that today, I'd totally buy them. Anyway, I wanted to talk about the sport of boxing, because Stallone was recently inducted into the boxing hall of fame for his work in making boxing films, in particular the first one. In this one, he bends the rules of what's allowed in boxing, especially in the Creed/Drago fight. He went for the element of Creed wanting to die like a warrior in the fight instead of growing old and deteriorating, but the way the whole thing went down, with no ringside doctors, the press surrounding him after he hit the canvas, the ref not stopping the fight when it was obvious Drago had won. For me as a boxing fan it was a little hard to watch, and I wanted scream at the TV when Rocky yells "Can somebody get a doctor!", because every fight has a doctor at it, and he'd have been in the ring before Rocky was.
The boxing thing wasn't nearly as bad as this here. The training scenes were shot in Jackson Hole, Wyoming with the Grand Tetons in the background. If you don't know, the Tetons are over 13,000 feet in elevation, and require, at the very least, rock climbing at a 5.4 difficulty. I get that in the film these were supposed to be fake mountains in Siberia, but anyone looking at them can see that they aren't hills, they have some serious altitude and some serious rock climbing associated with them, so to see Rocky on a whim in just some snow boots and a leather jacket run up to the summit of one was ridiculous. It was also very silly, because they obviously just dropped a stuntman off near the top of one of the peaks and had him run around, then cut to Stallone somewhere else. It was that kind of thing that added to the shark jumping effect.
This is available on a really nice DVD from MGM video. Don't let my screenshots fool you, the DVD is two-sided, with one in widescreen and the other full screen, and I only decided to use the full screen side because I think they look better on the blog. It's a beautiful widescreen transfer on the other side, worth watching on a nice TV. If you see it used or on sale at a big chain, I'd scoop it up. This is a fun film and full of nostalgia-- plus it's the movie that introduced us to Dolph, and for that we're forever grateful.
For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089927/
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Totally agree about the soundtrack. Burning Heart and No Easy Way Out are classics!
ReplyDeleteHappy you quoted the lyrics!
"There's no short cut home!"
Also Dolph was perfect as Drago.
best of the 80s montages.
ReplyDeletei still don't quite get the robot though
Great review, and a great film. I agree with you how above the other ones, this one felt so over the top and theatrical. Especially with that "everybody can change" speech at the end. Just plain ridiculous, but awesome. And I have to give it to Stallone for putting songs in most of his films I never woulda heard on my own, and songs that stick with me to this day. Cobra is another one with some great cheesy 80's songs. He always somehow managed to pick just the right song. I've always thought of 3 as my favorite of the series though, I guess because it had Hulk Hogan "and" the one and only Mr. T. Just too awesome.
ReplyDeleteNo pics of Paulie's robot!! For shame.
ReplyDeleteGot to say of all the movies, Rocky 3 & 4 are the ones I rewatch the most.
Rocky 4 is almost 90% montage, seriously the script must have been like 5 pages long.
An authentic 80's classic and my favorite "Rocky" movie. Great review!
ReplyDeleteYeah Ty, this is one of those 80s flicks where the soundtrack is as much of a classic as the movie.
ReplyDeleteFunny thing Jack and SNS, I read on imdb that the robot has a SAG card.
Jack and Ronald, I can see where you're coming from with III and IV being more watchable than part I, which was much more of a serious drama. I love the original the best, but these ones are a lot of fun too.
You hit the nail on the head robotGEEK with the "Everyone can change" speech, because it was essentially Rocky ending the Cold War-- or at least warming it up. We had no idea that the thing would be over in five years anyway, or that the only reason it was surviving at all was because Reagan's militant stance was emboldening factions that wanted to keep the Soviet Union as it was; and on some levels, though this is no Red Dawn, Rocky IV was a part of last gasp 80s Red Scare movement. It was a different time, and it's funny to look back.
Great movie (all of the ROCKY movies are great) but I prefer III over IV (The rematch with Clubber Lang is a stone cold classic)
ReplyDeleteI was 13 when this movie was released, and it was a huge hit in the UK also. Me and a couple of friends went to see it after school. We loved it that much, we hid under the seats after it had finished (to hide from the cinema staff) and watched it again. And then we hid again and made it a straight treble for Balboa, that night.
The crazy thing is, at the time, the movie didn't appear to be as 'gung-ho-American-kill-a-commie' as it now seems. We'd done loads of classwork about a probable cold war happening, it was always on the news, and it felt very real. Stallone just tapped into that mindest, and used it as a plot device to wrap another Rocky film around. In hindsight (thankfuly) it now seems very dated, but at the time, it was quite possible that we might go to war with Russia.
If you notice the Drago/Creed fight, the ref DOES try to stop the fight, but is pushed away by the Russian....who'd be obviously jailed for such actions, in real life.
I'm sure I've read that the movie only consists of 27 mins of acting? (as opposed to the boxing/flashback/montage/songs, etc)
Anyhow, great review. This and number III have the most watchability. I prefer III (and love the much-maligned V) over this one, but any movie that introduces a fighter as (Quote) "The Count Of Monte Fisto" is ok in my books. If you think the MGM DVD is good, you should check out the Blu-ray (it looks very sharp for a film of this age)
BTW, Have you noticed the goof with Apollo's boxing gloves prior to his exhibition bout (it's as he's screaming "I want you...I want you!" to Drago)
That is hilarious that the Robot has a SAG card! Haha!
ReplyDeleteYeah Ty, I thought that was kind of a trip too that the robot is a SAG member.
ReplyDeleteLee, thank you for that personal story regarding this movie. Being younger than you, at about this time, I remember the Cold War as something much more sinister. I recall a TV movie over here called "Amerika" about the US being invaded by the Soviets, and I asked my mom why America was spelled with a "K", and she said "I guess that's just what the Russians changed it too after they took it over", and that scared the crap out of me. It was almost like the 80s were the last gasp of the Red Scare, fueled by Reagan amping up he rhetoric (calling the USSR the "Evil Empire" and whatnot), before the Berlin Wall came down; but inside that last bastion of Red Scare, we got some fun films, like this one and Red Dawn.
I loved that "Count of Monte Fisto" line too. No wonder Creed lost his bout, he wasted too much energy dancing with James Brown! According to imdb, Weathers and Lundgren didn't get along, and actually had altercations in the ring. How can you not like Lundgren Carl? I did notice the ref getting pushed away as he stepped in, but there was still a lot of drama surrounding Stallone throwing in the towel. If the ref couldn't stop the fight, what good would the towel do? It was just one of those cases where the boxing took a backseat to the idea of the Creed character wanting to die in the ring as a warrior; but I agree with you that touches like that add to the watchability.
Great Review....3 and 4 are the ones i watched the most...1 and 2 are less flashy, but not bad, of course..but entertainment-wise, 3 and 4 must rank the highest...the soundtrack is awesome, as are a lot 80s OSTs, these days they just throw a bunch of new music on there, hyping whoever is selling best at the moment....absolutely disregarding the story of the film itself...OCER THE TOP is another one with an awesome soundtrack...TOP GUN and so much more...the 80s plain rock for so many reasons...part 5 was kinda dissapointing, but I liked how he ended it with Rocky 6.
ReplyDeleteI think I've seen that 'Amerika' movie (does it star Kris Kristofferson?)
ReplyDeleteAdding to the cold war threat, I remember 'THE DAY AFTER'....and then along came the UK's answer, called 'THREADS' (which made 'The Day After' look like 'Sesame Street') If you ever get a chance to see 'Threads' approach with caution, as it's one of the nastiest 'what if' tales of nuclear holocaust ever filmed (grim stuff)
Getting back to ROCKY IV, if you check out the trailer on your MGM disc, there's a deleted scene with Balboa and the boxing council at a meeting, and they object to sanctioning the fight, on the grounds of what Drago has done to Creed. Interesting stuff (but i guess all that plot and 'talking' got in the way of some bitchin' montages and training sequences)
BTW, don't know if you've seen this early advance trailer of ROCKY IV? It gives the Ivan Drago character a bit more depth (not to mention 'dialogue')
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0XKKbHYVfA
In regards to the Weathers/Lundgren altercation, check this out;
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03Lh10y3DBU
Hellford667, totally agree about the movie soundtracks. Back then getting on a soundtrack was a great way to showcase your work-- which it is now too I guess, but you're right, they seldom have the bands write original songs like they did then. And I agree with you too that 3 and 4 are more watchable, but 1 is still my favorite.
ReplyDeleteAnd thank you Lee for those links. That Apollo Creed V. Drago rematch will make a great Daily Dolph on the DTVC Tumblr! I did check out the trailer-- which really brings out the contrast in how well the film was restored for the DVD-- and I saw the thing with the governing body, which I guess was in the film to show that Stallone, because he was fighting Dolph, who had killed someone in the ring, would forfeit his belt. Considering the film was only 90 minutes long, and as you said, only 27 minutes of acting, that scene shouldn't have been cut in my opinion.