Rocky in Review, Part 3: Why Rocky V Is Better Than You Think
Not a Great Rocky Movie, But a Worthy One All the Same
On Thursdays for the foreseeable future, I’ll be publishing reviews of classic movies, pieces that have never appeared here before taken from my book 200 Reviews, available now in Paperback or on Kindle (which you should really consider buying, because it’s an awesome collection!). For our first set of films, we’re looking at the Rocky series, continuing today with the final entry of the 20th century, Rocky V.
Rocky V - 1990, Dir. John G. Avildsen
Originally written March 5th, 2023
Rocky V is far from a great Rocky film, and it's probably not even a good one when all is said and done, but it might be a touch underrated, both for the things it genuinely does well, and for the many good ideas on its mind, several of which would be revisited (and improved upon) in future sequels. The film's tepid reception and far-superior follow-ups Rocky Balboa and Creed have all combined to sweep Rocky V into the dustbin of cinematic history, but I don't think it fully belongs there. If you're a fan of the franchise who's skipped or overlooked this film, I think it's genuinely worth a watch.
The first act is actually pretty great, picking up in the immediate aftermath of the fight with Ivan Drago, and quickly deflating the high of that impossible victory with a harrowing dose of reality. All those punches to the face have caught up with Rocky and left him with life-threatening brain damage (Stallone’s higher-impact re-edit of Rocky IV from 2021 actually tees up this plot point better than the theatrical cut of Rocky IV did), just as a rogue accountant has gambled all of the Balboa fortune away on a bad real estate bid. So Rocky and his family are left penniless just as he's medically disqualified from boxing again, and they all wind up back on the mean streets of Philadelphia where he started in the original film. It's a smart premise, making Rocky an underdog again after a string of sequels where he'd damn near become a superhero, and Sylvester Stallone and especially Talia Shire play it all very well.
Now, Rocky Balboa would do this basic idea much better 16 years later, with an older, down-on-his-luck Rocky having lost Adrian and become estranged from his son grappling with his legacy and his aging body. That's a great Rocky film, and a much better culmination of the franchise, fully paying off on these ideas where Rocky V gets sidelined by a lot of weird creative decisions in the film's second half, which is built around Rocky training a new up-and-coming fighter, Tommy Gunn. This too is an idea that I like in theory. It makes sense for Rocky to eventually step out of the ring and take on a role like Mickey played in the earlier films, though, again, a later film would do this much better – Ryan Coogler's Creed executes this idea pretty much flawlessly, where Rocky V stumbles in the follow-through.
First and foremost, Tommy Gunn doesn't work as a character. Tommy Morrison isn't much of an actor, he and Stallone don't have any chemistry at all, and he isn't written as any kind of interesting foil or counterpart to Rocky. It doesn't help that it all gets wrapped up in an extremely shoehorned conflict where Rocky pays more attention to Tommy than his actual son, Robert. It’s all very convoluted and comes absolutely out of nowhere, with Rocky having no clear, compelling reason to get this obsessed with Tommy, and having shown no indication, either in this movie or the earlier ones, that he would just up and ignore his son like this.
Moreover, the film just completely falls apart tonally once Rocky takes Tommy under his wing, the generally well-crafted, grounded drama of the first act giving way to a tone that vacillates between sitcom and soap opera. Stallone's performance gets really creaky and aimless, and it doesn't feel like he or director John G. Avildsen have a clear sense of how Rocky should be played here. It's a weird mix of bravado and vulnerability and arch comedy that doesn't gel well at all. Once Tommy makes his heel turn and Rocky starts to snap out of it, there are some nice scenes, including a moment where Rocky tries reconnecting with Robert on a street corner, which is a startlingly good piece of acting on Stallone's part. I wish more of the film were like that, because that's the good stuff – you just have to wade through a lot of awkward material to get there.
Speaking of tonal issues, the soundtrack in this one has a lot of late-80s/early-90s hip-hop that feels completely out of place in a series that never used it before. The Creed films would integrate hip-hop, obviously, but the shift in both protagonist and location makes it work much, much better (Adonis is from Los Angeles, and the music Coogler and Ludwig Göransson put on the soundtrack sounds like the kind of stuff Creed would listen to, whereas I don't think Rocky Balboa has ever listened to hip-hop in his life). It's a weird fit that feels like something the studio slathered all over the movie in post.
All that being said, I won’t lie – I like how this movie wraps up. Tommy Gunn goes from zero to shitbag in record time, but look, I am a simple man, and "My ring's outside" is a great line. Sometimes you just have to end a movie with two guys coming to blows in an alley, and whatever problems Rocky V has, this is a satisfying, appealingly loopy conclusion (and one that has the distinction of being very different from the climaxes to all the other Rocky and Creed films, which happen in the ring via official matches). I also enjoy seeing Tommy getting taken away by the cops at the end while Rocky beats the shit out of both him and the dirtbag promoter, Duke, and basically crowd surfs away, even getting the blessing of the local Preacher. Hometown advantage, I guess – Philly's got Rocky's back.
There are copious rumors swirling that Stallone is working on a new cut of Rocky V (not a director's cut, since Avildsen directed this one and he passed away in 2017), and I'd like to see that. They shot more material with Burgess Meredith as Mickey, apparently, which would be nice to see, and while I don't think you could fix all the tonal or performance issues with a re-cut, Stallone's new cut of Rocky IV worked some small wonders, and I'd like to see what he'd do with this (at the very least, he could fix the soundtrack).
NEXT WEEK: We finish the original run of Rocky movies with a look at the final entry in the original series, 2006’s revival Rocky Balboa.
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