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Review

Sylvester Stallone pulls triple duty in Rocky Balboa as writer, director and star — and acquits himself well in all three tasks. The retired champ runs a restaurant named after his beloved, departed wife Adrian. His son has become a stranger to him, and Rocky spends as much time in the past as the present. The reigning heavyweight champ is Mason ‘The Line’ Dixon, whose recent fights have been against creampuffs in the absence of any suitable opponents, resulting in one-round knock-outs and the loss of fans’ respect.

A computerized match-up between Balboa and Dixon, similar to the fantasy fight between Marciano and Ali, grabs the public’s attention and leads Dixon’s promoters and handlers to a grandiose publicity scheme aimed at rekindling their fighter’s image and popularity. Rocky, who expected a small-scale exhibition fight, accepts the bigger challenge.

The film’s predictability is more than compensated by the respect inherent in the characters’ treatment. Rocky Balboa is at its core a gentle tale of regular people dealing as best they can with what life throws at them. Footage from the original Rocky is sprinkled throughout, and protagonists both old and new are portrayed ably and with dignity; Rocky’s relationship with his son is thoughtfully explored, albeit briefly. The Vegas fight sequence references every boxing movie from The Champ to Diggstown to Raging Bull, and captures the savage beauty of the sweet science.

The film provides a fairy-tale ending without sugar shock or insulting one’s intelligence. In fact, it serves as the perfect coda to the first Rocky, and avoids the comic book treatment of the series’ middle entries. If Stallone intended to pay tribute to the film that made him a big-time Hollywood star, if he wanted to retire the character that made him a household name with respect and appreciation, he did it.

 -- Ann Yarabinee