Rocky IV
Rocky Balboa retires as the world heavy eight champion but is forced out of retirement after a new challenger came forth; Drago, an intimidating 6-foot-5, 261-pound athlete backed by the Soviet Union kills his friend Apollo, in a one-sided match. He vows to avenge Apollo's death but has to train harder.
21 May 1952, Chicago, Illinois, USA
16 January 1938, Youngstown, Ohio, USA
6 February 1953, Hollywood, California, USA
23 June 1926, Los Angeles, California, USA
28 July 1917, Cape Town, South Africa
December 7, 1956 in Belgrade, Serbia, Yugoslavia
30 April 1940, New York City, New York, USA
April 30, 2016
'Rocky IV' still stands, not as a highlight of the series (certainly not that) but as a quintessential artifact of mid-'80s studio filmmaking: soulless, flag-waving, soundtrack-blasting Product.
May 13, 2015
Though it's impossible not to get caught up in our hero's Russian training programme, or to root for his climactic victory, the mawkish montages accompanied by blaring music are no substitute for plot shading.
May 13, 2015
This is grim and witless storytelling, and what makes it so depressing is that it hasn't improved by so much as a chemical trace since the days of the first Rocky.
July 07, 2010
Whatever charm and grit there was in the first film is gone, replaced with a glossed up, over the top form of 1980's action melodrama, which is thick on the cheese and even thicker on the montages. And this critic loved every minute of it.
March 11, 2008
Sylvester Stallone is really sloughing it off shamelessly in Rocky IV, but it's still impossible not to root for old Rocky Balboa to get up off the canvas and whup that bully one more time.
May 13, 2015
[Stallone] creates credible villains worthy of his heroic character.
December 19, 2006
The crazed flag-waving would be a lot easier to take if it weren't so clearly a commercial calculation meant to salvage what is otherwise a crass, careless, shamelessly padded film.
May 13, 2015
The new film's narrative is stripped down to essentials, which gives it an emblematic quality.
May 13, 2015
The outcome of the film is predetermined by the formulaic scripts of Rocky II and Rocky III. Stallone boxed himself into a corner with this one.
May 13, 2015
Padded with clips from earlier Rocky pictures, adding nothing to his mythic, let alone human dimensions, it lacks even the primitive suspense and crude capacity to release underdog emotions that permitted its predecessors to conquer one's better judgment.
May 13, 2015
His vacuous post-bout speech indicates why boxers with 75 professional bouts are rarely called upon as public speakers.
