Rocky 5
Sometimes a franchise runs out of gas because of a lack of audience interest. Other times it happens because the creative powers that be behind that franchise decide to go in a “new” direction and thusly ruin it with the botched newness of said direction. Nowhere has that been so obviously the case than with the fifth installment of the Rocky series that was released in 1990. Widely touted as having already been determined as being the “final” chapter in the franchise (Stallone had even written that Rocky would actually die following the final fight in the film before the studio demanded that not be the case), the film even commemorated that fact by bringing back John G. Avildsen to once again direct, having won an Oscar for directing Part 1 before stepping aside to have Stallone direct Parts 2, 3 and 4. Once again the original film’s biggest flaws would become apparent as Stallone had originally written Part 1 as being a gritty R rated festival of profanity and sexual situations before producers Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler wisely told Stallone that the lead role would be his and that the film would be made if he toned down the script to a PG so that it could be an inspirational family film. Unfortunately, Avildsen was brought in to direct based off of him reading the previous script and he still helmed the film as a documentary style, slice of life, hard edged drama only with the dialogue now pared to being an unrealistic series of TV movie like exchanges (which to Stallone when directing Part 2 making the noticeable stylistic changes to telling the story as a larger than life fantasy). Again, both Stallone and Avildsen were onboard with the “Rocky dies” ending before the studio forced the change, but even then almost everything before that in the movie seems to be about castrating and emasculating the Rocky Balboa character from his past glories in the 1970s and 80s. The film starts with the final moments of the Rocky vs Ivan Drago fight from Part 4 (still possibly the greatest cinematic boxing match of all time) only to find afterward that something is dreadfully amiss as Rocky’s hands can’t stop shaking and he suddenly thinks that his dead manager Mickey is still alive and actively starts talking to him. Turns out that Rocky has severe brain damage, so bad in fact that the next blow to the head could literally kill him (with the heavy implication being that Drago had caused most of the damage). Even worse, it turns out that before leaving for Russia, Burt Young’s Paulie had Rocky sign a falsified power of attorney which resulted in all their money being drained away, an especially depressing notion since this puts Rocky right back on the streets of Philadelphia as a happy go lucky, down on his luck bum whom of course everybody knows and recognizes. Rocky of course immediately wants to set up another fight, but Adrian (Talia Shire) won’t hear of it, telling Rocky that she doesn’t care about the money and that she would rather have Rocky in one piece (all while directing the evil eye at Paulie for being stupid enough to allow this to happen). Certainly having this be the fate for a character as beloved as Rocky already makes this one of the most depressing movies of all time within the first 20 minutes, but it’s actually going to get worse. Young Rocky Jr., who was elaborately pampered for much of his young life, must now attend an inner city public school and thus become a homing beacon for every bully at the place looking to test out Rocky’s kid. As played by Sage Stallone (Stallone’s real life son), the antagonism between Rocky and his son clearly mirrors what would happen between the two in real life with Sage reportedly having so much trouble coping with the shadow of his famous father that he wound up acting in horrific rape horror films and developing a drug habit that is believed to have been responsible for his early death, but not before turning down with relish the offer to reprise the Rocky Jr. role in Rocky 6 a.k.a. Rocky Balboa (which was actually an even worse film than this one), but here the kid merely suffers from neglect as Rocky takes himself back to Mick’s Gym (which Mickey had actually willed to Rocky Jr. we find out which had made it safe from The IRS raiding it along with the rest of Rocky’s assets) to train some up and coming prospects. This gives us a bit of an unexpected treat as Burgess Meredith shows up in a cameo here as the long dead Mickey (probably because they knew that it was their last chance to use him before he passed away in real life). Presented as being a combination between a flashback and a ghost (and introducing an important element to the plot that would play itself out later), Meredith’s little monologue is probably the best piece of acting in the film, a true reminder of what had made the earlier movies great. Meanwhile, there’s trouble on the professional front as Rocky is being hounded by a promoter who is larger than life in his own mind, Mr. George Washington Duke (Richard Gant, a well traveled character actor who has been in tons of movies but for whom this performance remains his magnum opus), who tells Rocky that he has truckloads of money to pay him if he gets back in the ring despite his medical issues but Adrian won’t hear of it, so Duke (an obvious parody of the hated real life promoter Don King complete with many of the same mannerisms and catchphrases) bides his time and waits while Rocky hooks up with a promising young fighter named Tommy Gunn (real life heavyweight contender at the time Tommy Morrison) and becomes his trainer and manager, setting him up to win several bum fights all while the publicity from Tommy being “Rocky’s boy” gets him attention both good and bad, but Rocky (despite not making any real money for either of them) is just loving the feeling of leading this kid to victory time and time again. Along with Sage of course, Tommy Morrison is the other tragic story coming out of this film, seeing his boxing career come to an end after testing HIV Positive and then claiming that it was a false read even as he still retired and reportedly suffered in poor health until his death at age 44 from “cardiac arrest” in 2013. That being said, Morrison proved himself to not be such a bad actor here (and lights years better than the robotic actor who would play The Champ in Part 6) and his scenes of him bonding with Rocky (where we learn more about his family history than we ever did about Rocky’s) at the expense of Rocko bonding with his son are effective as we see Duke finally make his move. Having now taken control of The World Heavyweight Title vacated by Rocky when he retired, he approaches Tommy by offering him up a piece of ass (Delia Sheppard) and a seemingly on the level offer: have Rocky keep training him while offering him a coveted shot at the title (with it being heavily implied that Duke decides who wins) and the big money fights that Rocky was unable to secure for him. The deal sounds good and reasonable to Tommy and shouldn’t cause any friction between he and Rocky, but when Rocky is approached with the same offer which allows him to remain in a trainer capacity, Rocky flips out, desperately and pleadingly telling Tommy that Duke is NOT someone to be doing business with despite Duke’s initial straight up offer which had seemed pretty fair to both Tommy and the viewer. What this comes down to is the idea that Duke’s “plot” to get Rocky back in the ring (against Tommy obviously) is almost entirely dependent on Rocky being a paranoid idiot who won’t even sit down and listen to what Duke has to say business wise presumably because he’s still stung about Duke offering to get him into the ring with or without his health issues being a problem. This is probably why (in retrospect) Stallone has personally rated this as being the worst of the series (in his opinion) and would later try to forcefully continue it with the awful Part 6. As most people know, it all ends in a wild street fight between Rocky and Tommy outside Rocky’s favorite bar where his brain damage isn’t really an issue but he still alternates between having hallucinations of Mickey and Drago while Duke alternates between cheering Tommy on and berating him for allowing Rocky to goad him into a no money street fight. Stallone and Avildsen were divided on the ending (with Stallone winning out while Avildsen preferred Rocky and Tommy making up afterwards) but the overall downbeat tone regardless damages the series in a way that it could never recover from…
5/10