Rocky IV (1985)

Rocky Balboa has led quite a life. First he’s a working schlep plucked out of nowhere fighting for nothing but pride. Then he gets a shot at fighting for a title and the respect that comes with it. Then, while at the top of his game he stumbles and fights for honor and self-respect. Nothing is bigger than that, right? Wrong! Rocky’s latest outing sees him carrying his country on his shoulders and fighting for political and patriotic glory.

The Soviet Union has produced a boxing giant named Ivan Drago and they are shopping around the USA for opponents to crush. He trains using the latest high-tech tools, making him an almost inhuman challenger to the US’s boxing elite. Dying to prove he’s still got what it takes, Apollo Creed lets his ego get the best of him and challenges Drago to an exhibition match in Vegas. Rocky helps him train but the match turns ugly and Drago’s brutal assault kills Creed.

Shaken to the core but hungry to avenge his friend’s death, Rocky agrees to take on Drago in Russia on Christmas Day. Adrian disapproves and Rocky is forced to relinquish his title in order to fight. While Drago trains with the latest technology and anabolic steroids, Rocky goes all-natural, training in the Siberian wilderness with his brother-in-law and Creed’s former trainer. Naturally, Rocky rises to the moment and comes from behind in an ugly match to defeat Drago and even wins over the hostile Russian crowd.

Rocky IV is a very difficult movie to place. With Rocky III, Stallone sold out the heart of Balboa and turned the series into a money-making machine. With no innocence left for the franchise, Stallone (who writes and directs his third consecutive Rocky flick) goes for broke and crams this film with every element possible to elicit his desired response from audiences. The result is a film that manipulates you into being satisfied with an inferior product by appealing to our most rudimentary heartstrings.

I grew up during the final stages of the Cold War but wasn’t old enough to grasp the importance of world events until long after the fall of the USSR. In this way, I missed out on much of the animosity that brewed between the nations since World War II. But I did grow up on mid to late 80s and early 90s movies that contained enough of that Cold War ‘spirit’ to get the picture. This ‘spirit’ is exactly what Stallone plays to with this film but it only works for members of the early half of Generation Y and older.

Tapping into the über-patriotism of the era is cheap but it was probably the only thing Stallone could do to make a fourth Rocky flick interesting. Apollo Creed’s cocky swagger helped fuel support for Rocky in the first two films and Clubber Lang’s egomaniacal behavior in III upped the ante. Had Rocky merely taken on yet another self-loving boxer, Rocky IV would have felt redundant. Making Drago Russian raises the stakes to the next level, even though it results in a lower-quality film.

Let’s be honest- Rocky IV is really Rocky III on anabolic steroids. The formula is still the same- a boxer presents himself as a threat; that boxer causes the death of someone Rocky loves; Rocky challenges him; Adrian objects; Rocky has a few training montages; Adrian comes around; and, finally, Rocky surmounts the odds and wins the fight. The only difference is that Ivan Drago isn’t even remotely respectable, allowing Stallone to simplify the formula even further.

I don’t know who ever told Sylvester Stallone that he was a capable writer but they certainly lied. The script is full of groan-worthy lines and the acting is shaky at best. Dolph Lundgren does a good job of standing around and looking menacing, which is all Drago is there to do. There is literally no character development to be had for Drago (and virtually none for anyone else for that matter). He is the archetypal villain and Rocky the archetypal hero.

But Rocky IV is more than just hero vs. villain. It’s David vs. Goliath, US vs. Russia, nature vs. science, and the American spirit vs. the cold Soviet machine all rolled into one. Despite being shamelessly calculated, Rocky IV’s banal formula is also what makes it so darn fun to watch. While parts of the film are no doubt recognized as cliché-ridden fluff by audiences, the simplicity of this jingoistic underdog tale bypasses our bullcrap detectors and actually finds a way to be endearing.

This is a weak film but it is also highly enjoyable. What little craftsmanship is on display (though the boxing scenes are some of the series’ best) hardly matters because every fiber of our being wants to watch Rocky rise to the top and crush his vile opponent. It’s one of the guiltiest of all guilty pleasures, which is fine by me.

RATING: 2.25 out of 5

Fantastic Four (2005)

With a resurgence in comic book movies in the 2000s, it was inevitable that one of Marvel Comic’s most popular superhero teams would make their way to the big screen. The Fantastic Four are a colorful and fun bunch of crime fighters but telling their story was always going to be a difficult task. Each member requires substantial visual effects and telling their origin story is no easy task.

Reed Richards is a brilliant but bankrupt physicist on the verge of a breakthrough. He believes he can prove the spark for evolution lies within rare bursts of cosmic energy. To gather the data he needs, he convinces his former classmate and millionaire Victor von Doom to allow him the use of his private space station. Richards and Doom assemble a team including gruff astronaut Ben Grimm, Doom’s beautiful assistant and genetics researcher Susan Storm (who is also Richard’s ex-girlfriend) and Susan’s brother, Johnny, a hotshot astronaut who lives like a rock star.

The experiment goes horribly wrong and the team is exposed to the dangerous cosmic radiation. Back on Earth, Richards, Grimm and the Storm’s discover that they have all developed bizarre mutations, giving them a variety of superpowers. Each of them struggles with their new abilities and, after saving many lives during an accident on the Brooklyn Bridge, they form a team dubbed The Fantastic Four by the media. Meanwhile, Von Doom’s reputation is ruined and his corporation slides into bankruptcy. He too is developing powers and decides to use them to punish Richards and his friends for ruining his life.

One of the best things about the Fantastic Four is that they have always been on the lighter side of the superhero spectrum. Unfortunately for the filmmakers, happy-go-lucky super teams were no longer in vogue after the immense popularity of the dark, gritty Batman Begins, released just a month earlier. With the successful rebirth of Batman, comic book movie fans wanted more of the same- troubled, morally ambiguous heroes dealing with inner darkness. They wanted believable looking effects, stunts and fights. This is simply not possible for the Fantastic Four.

I think this led some critics and plenty of movie-goers to leave theaters feeling disappointed. Frankly, they never should have expected anything but a loud, colorful, mostly brainless popcorn flick. That is the essence of the Fantastic Four. Their powers and attitudes lead to sight gags and cheesy one-liners. That’s what made them so popular as a comic book series; they were able to save the day without being too serious.

Batman Begins did the right thing and gave its origin story enough time to develop at over two hours long. Fantastic Four has a run time of just over an hour and 40 minutes. This forces the filmmakers to rush just about everything in order to introduce the major players, set up the accident, develop their new powers and throw them into conflict with Doom. This lightning-quick pace hurts your ability to suspend disbelief because the pace of everything borders on absurd.

On top of the pace, the powers each member of the Four and Dr. Doom possess require plenty of special effects. Johnny Storm (aka The Human Torch) and Ben Grimm (The Thing) get the best of the lot with superb digital effects and makeup work. Richards (Mr. Incredible), who can stretch his body in unnatural ways, has the least realistic looking effects because his power is virtually impossible to make look real. The effects during some of the action sequences look a tad stagey at times but are usually adequate enough.

If there is one thing we can learn from this film is that standalone superhero stories are easier to pull off than team stories. With Batman, Superman, Spider-Man and Iron Man, filmmakers can devote more time to develop their main character. With Fantastic Four, we have four good guys and a villain to develop in a much shorter amount of time. While fans of the comics know each character is interesting in their own right, all we’re able to get out of the film is a quick glimpse and a caricature of an otherwise cool team of superheroes.

I still think that critics and moviegoers were too hard on this film. I think that the Fantastic Four are at the top of the second-tier of comic book superheroes but they are still second-tier. Any film version of their origins was bound to be a little over the top and goofy. It would be a stretch to say that the filmmakers did the best with what they had, because the film could have been a little bit longer to provide proper character development. Then again, it could have been a lot worse (and by worse I mean the unreleased 1994 version of the film made solely to secure copyright to the property).

RATING: 2.75 out of 5