Rocky II (1979)

Rocky II (1979)

6/10

 

Starring

Sylvester Stallone

Talia Shire

Carl Weathers

Burgess Meredith

Directed by Sylvester Stallone

The way Rocky ended you can see so many paths towards a sequel and thanks to the box office returns, a sequel was produced.

 Rocky II was done three years after the first, and even though it’s nowhere near as great as the original, it still holds up as a good movie. It focuses more on the struggles of being illiterate and Rocky, who doesn’t want to fight anymore, finding it difficult to get by.

Rocky (1976) transitions into this movie, with Rocky II showing how Apollo deals with the fact that he almost got beaten by an underdog, while Rocky has to deal with the reality of being newly married to the woman of his dreams.

Rocky feels fulfilled—he has the woman of his dreams, he just went toe-to-toe with the world heavyweight champion, and the champion barely managed to escape. He feels on top of the world, like nothing can go wrong.

As an illiterate, Rocky goes on a spending spree, which lands him in financial turmoil, quickly taking him from riches back to rags.

The main flaw in this movie, which keeps it from standing toe-to-toe with the first, is the lack of juice to fill the gap between his fall and his rise back to fame. It goes downhill fast and just keeps getting sadder. The highlight of the movie for me is Rocky’s commitment to being a man and taking care of his home. He tries so hard to keep a cheerful outlook no matter what when he’s with Adrian, but things change when Apollo goes after Rocky with all kinds of humiliation just to get him to fight again.

The movie is directed by Stallone himself and was well-received by critics, holding a 71% approval rating compared to the first movie’s 91%. It costs more to make this time, with a budget of $7 million, and it made $200 million at the box office.

We also get to see Rocky’s iconic run to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. This time, the producers were able to get about 800 schoolchildren to be extras in the film. Rocky II is a movie you have to see—after watching the first, there’s no way you won’t itch to see the follow-up.

No matter what many have to say, this movie is one you should own. The acting is grand, and the fight between Apollo (Carl Weathers) and Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) is better coordinated (even if it doesn’t carry the same emotional weight as the first).