What a wild ride we shared these last few months, eh?
My marathon through the Rocky movies was an intriguing one. Not simply because some movies were good and some were bad. In fact, it was never so simple. However bad they got, these movies always had something interesting, compelling, bizarre, or entertaining.
Like, look at Rocky V. I’d argue it’s the worst film in the series. Yet for a solid half of it, I actually really liked it! The movie betrayed me; how often can you say something like that?!
But I’m getting ahead of myself. First, we need to rank them.
Rocky 1 should need no explaining. It’s one of the greatest films ever made! You can still watch it to this day, nearly fifty years later, and have an incredible time! Few underdog stories are so compelling!
Creed 1 earns the same rank because it is the perfect revival of the series. It takes the story in a new direction while still respecting the legacy of the films that came before it. Even the bad ones. It was a refreshing breath of fresh air that I sorely needed by this point in the marathon.
Next are the pretty good movies. The ones that aren’t as spectacular as the GOAT movies, but are still enjoyable to watch regardless. Creed II is definitely the better film in my opinion; the story of the Dragos was significantly more interesting to me than Rocky’s happy family life and rematch with Apollo. Even so, these are still enjoyable films that I wouldn’t mind seeing again.
The dumb fun movies need little more explanation. Rocky III is stupid, but it is fun to see Rocky go up against a crazy wrestler and Mr. T. Rocky IV is completely insane; I’ll never stop laughing over Paulie’s robot wife as long as I live. Creed III is a mostly fine film; it’s my least favorite Creed movie, but I still had fun watching it.
Our penultimate step in the ranking is the mediocre valley, home to Rocky VI. There’s still plenty I like about this film. But looking at the whole picture, it just feels kinda… empty. Like the movie was running off of fumes. Besides which, the plot is downright stupid, and not in the hilarious way. I doubt I’ll ever revisit this one.
Finally, we come to the final tier and the final movie. Surprise! It’s Rocky V. It tricked me into thinking it might be a good movie, then lured me into an alley and mugged me! It was downright cruel! It was barely even a boxing movie!
That’s the ranking. Honestly, I’m surprised. When I first started this marathon, I fully expected to put all of these films in the bottom tear, with Rocky 1 being the sole good film. Shows just how little I knew about what I was getting into.
I was surprisingly compelled by the series through and through. It was like a rollercoaster, with dips and turns and rises and bends so quick they gave me whiplash. But through it all, in spite of all its flaws, one thing kept me hooked.
The main character.
Rocky Balboa has become one of my favorite fictional characters! This gentle giant with a pension for long, bumbling rants wormed his way into my heart straight away in the first film and he’s not going anywhere anytime soon! No matter how bad these films got, he was always consistently enjoyable.
Take Rocky VI. Mediocre movie with a dumb plot. You know why I bothered finishing it? Because Rocky himself was incredible! Sylvester Stalone was acting his heart out, and the character’s speeches were full of genuine wisdom and emotion absent from the main story. He became like my cinematic grandpa!
No matter how bad the story, I almost always felt for Rocky. His triumphs had my whooping for joy and his losses broke my heart. I watched him find love, then lose it. I’ve seen his struggles as a parent (more times than I would have liked) and as a mentor. More than anything, I saw his struggles.
Rocky’s most compelling enemies were never in the ring, they were within himself. His low self-esteem. His fear. His grief. These are the victories that had me the most engaged, all the way from Rocky 1 to Creed II.
When I started this marathon, I knew virtually nothing about Rocky. Now, it’s one of my favorite movie series! Yes, a good number of the films are bad. But this viewing experience was so wild, so interesting, and so fun that I don’t really care!
That said, I need a break from marathoning films. It’s not as exhausting as an actual marathon, but god damn does it feel like it!
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