Boycott of the 1980 Olympic Games
'Rocky IV' Is No Surprise But It Still Packs A Punch
December 3, 1985 | By Jay Boyar, Sentinel Movie Critic
Even before the movie starts, the capacity crowd at a weekend showing of Rocky IV is charged up. Kids are running up and down the aisle.
The pre-movie chatter is much louder than usual. And everyone is obviously restless as the ''coming attractions'' trailers unreel.
So when the words, ''AND NOW OUR FEATURE PRESENTATION,'' appear on the screen, the crowd -- and it is more of a crowd than an audience -- at the Interstate Mall 6 begins to cheer.
These people are spoiling for a fight.
Appropriately enough, the first noise on the movie's sound track is the sound of people cheering. The scene is a reprise of the passage from Rocky III in which the Italian Stallion (Sylvester Stallone) clobbers Clubber Lang (Mr. T). As the sequence ends, Rocky Balboa is the champ of the world. He has beaten all challengers. No one can touch him. Except . . .
Except, perhaps, Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren), known in his native Russia as the Siberian Express. It's more than just a nickname. A fighter trained by every machine the Soviets can devise, he seems as mechanical as any railroad engine.
The Siberian Express, who rarely speaks, has eyes that glare like headlights and a body as smooth and shiny as that of a new car. He might as well be a cyborg -- like the Terminator -- for all the emotion he displays during an exhibition match with Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers), Rocky's sparring partner and former adversary. When Creed falls in the especially violent and bloody battle, Rocky knows he'll have to put the gloves on once again.
''You can't win!'' shouts Adrian (Talia Shire), our hero's loving though not always supportive wife. But as anyone who has ever seen a Rocky picture knows, she should have saved her breath. Rocky must meet Drago in the Soviet Union to avenge Creed's death and reclaim the honor of the Free World.
Film: Rocky IV (1985), 91 minutes
[DVD 03804 (1 copy)]
Adrian's nagging -- and her eventual recanting -- aren't the only things in Rocky IV that seem familiar. Virtually every detail in this movie has an analogue in one or more of the previous Rocky pictures. A robot that Rocky gives to his brother-in-law Paulie (Burt Young) in the new film, for example, is reminiscent of the turtles Rocky kept as pets in the original picture. And at times -- as in the new film's opening scene -- actual footage from earlier Rockys is recycled. But despite the repetition, or perhaps partly because of it, Rocky IV is a winner. It puts new laces into an old glove and manages to pack a wallop.
At a mere 90 minutes, Rocky IV is the shortest of the Rocky movies. Its narrative is stripped down to essentials, which gives it a distinctively emblematic quality. The new film doesn't have the scruffy charm of the first Rocky movie (still the best, as far as I'm concerned), the boring stretches of the second, or the funkiness (provided by Mr. T) of the third. The screenplay (written by Stallone, who also directed) is not so much a plot as it is an outline for a ritual in which the audience can take part. In this sense, the Rocky movie that this film most resembles is The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Amid all the cheering, I should add that this sort of production has never been a special favorite with me. Like the other Rocky movies, Rocky IV lacks finesse, fancy footwork. The film is a slugger that keeps hitting you with one obvious image after another. Funny thing, though: Obviousness is sometimes effective. If Rocky IV doesn't kill you, it'll conquer you.
Sylvester Stallone hasn't developed into an especially imaginative moviemaker over the years, but he has become a very shrewd one. Rambo, which Stallone co-wrote and starred in, gave American moviegoers a chance to feel as if they'd won the Vietnam War. Rocky IV makes us feel like we beat the Soviets in the Olympics, a triumph denied at the Los Angeles competition when they refused to participate.
I much prefer Rocky IV to Rambo: First Blood Part II for the same reason I like director John Milius' Conan the Barbarian better than his Red Dawn. The Rocky series is pure pop fantasy while Rambo impinges dangerously on the real world. True, Rocky IV paints its Soviet characters in unflattering cartoon terms, along the lines of Boris and Natasha (who, as it happens, had their own Rocky to contend with). But the Russian caricatures have little particular political resonance in a film inhabited entirely by caricatures.
And in the final minutes of the picture, Rocky's unexpected plea for world peace oddly neutralizes some of the earlier jingoism by emphasizing something that might otherwise have been overlooked: The movie takes a mockingly belligerent stance toward the Soviet Union, but Rocky himself does not. The Italian-American Stallion saves his aggression for the ring, and for his specific opponent.
Boxing is what he's best at, anyway. When Rocky lands his first solid punch on the Siberian Express, the crowd in the theater goes absolutely crazy.
ADDITIONAL MOVIE REVIEWS
The film Rocky IV depicts the aggressive and tension filled nature of the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union during the 1980s. The protagonist Rocky represents the might and hard work of Americans facing off against the daunting and very real threat of the antagonistic representation of the Soviet Union, Ivan Drago. The faceoff is symbolic of the constant fear of mortal danger that both Americans and Soviets faced during the Cold War and a contest of might between nations.
Maslin, Janet. “Screen: 'Rocky IV,' vs. the U.S.S.R.” The New York Times. 27 November 1985.