PUNCH & MOODY
Stallone reboots Rocky lV, but tired series looks close to being counted out
“IF I can change, we can all change” bellowed a flag waving Rocky after defeating Dolph Lundgren’s evil Ivan Drago in his own backyard.
The underdog hadn’t just taken revenge on the Soviet for killing his best friend Apollo…
As a rubbish Mikhail Gorbachev lookalike took to his feet to lead his fellow Ruskies in rapturous applause, it was as if Rocky had ended the Cold War.
Creed II shows there is unfinished business between Balboa and Drago – from 1985’s Rocky IV, the cheesiest film in a franchise that keeps on hauling itself off the canvas.
Here Rocky is training Apollo’s son Adonis (Michael B Jordan) to fight Drago’s son Viktor, another cartoon cut-out villain played by Florian Munteanu.
Fans will enjoy how Stallone, who returns as co-writer, takes us back to the series’ 1980s heyday.
But after Creed suggested a bright new future for the franchise, this feels like a backwards step.
For the 2016 film Stallone handed writing and directing duties to Ryan Coogler who delivered a stunning one-take opening and a gritty script about a young man trying to fight his way out of his dead father’s shadow.
He also helped Stallone deliver one of his most touching performances as Rocky, now an ailing widower mourning the loss of everyone he ever cared for.
Sadly Creed II is a more formulaic affair that telegraphs its punches from the opening reel. We find Adonis more or less where we left him. He’s now a cocky World Champ preparing to propose to his singer girlfriend Bianca (Tessa Thompson).
But the apple hasn’t fallen too far from the tree. Against advice he accepts a challenge from a dangerous foreigner with an axe to grind.
He doesn’t die in the opening fight with snarling Ukrainian Viktor Drago but his reputation is left in tatters after a beating.
A music-scored training montage (this time in the desert rather than frozen Siberia) announces a comeback.
Lundgren has a bit more to say this time (he only had nine lines in Rocky IV) and adds nuance to Ivan who lost his fame, fortune and statuesque wife (Brigitte Nelson making an icy return) when he got that slow-mo pasting 32 years ago.
Stallone isn’t tested enough. You get the feeling he knows his character so well he needed another writer to take him out of his comfort zone.
Here the emotional scale is a lot narrower than in the last film, ranging from graveside chats with Adrian to hammy inspirational speeches.
“Are you here to prove something to other people or prove something to yourself ?” he asks Adonis.
Thankfully, director Steven Caple Jr. breaks with the glossy style of Rocky’s 80s fights. The slo-mo is kept to a minimum and there is real heft and menace to Munteanu’s blows.
We feel them because Jordan has made us care. But I don’t think this franchise can survive on nostalgia alone.
If Rocky can change, hopefully Stallone can too.