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ROCKY
Blu-ray Edition
Review by Michael Jacobson
Stars: Sylvester
Stallone, Talia Shire, Burgess Meredith, Burt Young, Carl Weathers
Director: John G. Avildsen
Audio: DTS HD 5.1
Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 1.85:1
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Features: Trailers
Length: 119 Minutes
Release Date:
"All I want to do is go the distance..."
Film ****
The underdog-makes-good formula has been used so many times
in motion pictures that its practically a genre unto itself, but one title will
always stand out as the true champion: Rocky.
On the surface, this Oscar winner for Best Picture seems to
be a simple tale about a two-bit club fighter who makes good when given the
chance of a lifetime. Certainly,
everyone who's seen the picture remembers the climactic battle between Rocky (Stallone)
and Apollo Creed (Weathers).
But having seen the film more times than I can count,
I've made the pleasant discovery that it ages well on a very personal level.
When I was a kid, I loved the fighter in Rocky.
Now that I'm the same age as Rocky's character was in the film, I
notice a lot more in him.
I understand much more clearly that it's not the story of
a bum who gets a break. That's
not something people identify with any more than you can make a hero out of
someone who wins the lottery. No
one can choose the cards fate plays them.
It's the story of man who finds it in himself to be
something better than he or anyone else believed he could be.
It's the story about his relationship with a timid wallflower of a
girl, Adrian (Shire) and an aged, bitter fighter Mickey (Meredith) who all learn
to bring out the best in one another.
The one-in-a-million shot Creed offers him for the
heavyweight title is the catalyst, not the heart, of the story.
Anyone given the same chance could have climbed into the ring, given it a
go, and walked away with the nice compensatory purse and fifteen minutes of
fame. What happens for Rocky before that pivotal moment is that he
brings out Adrian's voice and helps her find herself, while her faith in him
makes him believe that maybe he's capable of more in life than what he'd
settled for. “She's got gaps, I
got gaps, together, we fill gaps,” he explains to her brother Paulie (Young).
Likewise, Rocky and Mickey help each other overcome years
of pain, frustration and failures. Mickey
knows boxing, but never had a shot. Rocky
has the shot, but not the knowledge. This strange mixture of a friendship brings out the best in
both men, and has won the hearts of audiences for decades.
Rocky knows he's nothing special. He's just one of hundreds of fighters who shuffled through
the doors of his run down Philadelphia gym and never made it.
He's a guy with the muscle, but not the heart for, the collection
duties that keep a meager pittance of cash in his pocket.
When offered the fight with Creed, he initially turns it down because
“it wouldn't be such a good fight”. The
irony is, no one in the Creed camp believes in Rocky.
They just want their philanthropic gesture to be the ultimate spectator
event. So it's not the
opportunity that Rocky had no control over that brings out the best in him.
The finale is truly memorable, not just for one of the best
fight scenes ever captured on celluloid, but because it accents the real heart
of the movie. At the end, the fight
was not as important as what Rocky and Adrian brought out in one another.
The shouts of “Yo, Adrian!” has become Hollywood vernacular, but
it's easy to overlook that while these two are declaring their love for one
another, the announcement that Rocky has lost the fight is being completely
submerged in the background.
Of course, the story of the making of Rocky is
almost as impressive as the underdog tale its protagonist lived.
A struggling young actor named Sylvester Stallone wrote the screenplay,
and shopped it around with the bold project attachment that he and he alone play
the lead. Studio after studio
turned him down because of that…imagine how different his life might have been
had he given in! Producers Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff eventually
agreed, paying Stallone a bare minimal actor's salary and nada for his script.
Most studios weren't enthused about the idea:
boxing stories rarely appealed to female audiences, and they saw nothing
in Stallone to make them believe the feminine half of the population would
support the picture. The romantic
leads were unglamorous, the location of Philadelphia brutal and unappealing to
the eye, and, of course, the main character loses the big fight.
In other words, no box office potential.
Of course, the movie would go on to become one of the most
popular in cinema history, earning Academy Award nominations for its stars and
winning for Picture and Director. Stallone
would become a household name, though it's hysterical to listen to the
original teaser on this disc which compares him to Nicholson, DeNiro and
Brando…Stallone?? But few
could argue with the next assertion: he
IS Rocky.
Rocky would soon evolve into a franchise, starting
with Rocky II, which captured a lot of the same spirit as the original
for these main characters, but with the ending the audiences were clamoring for.
It's hard not to think of the entire Rocky collection of films
when watching the first one, but it's good to try.
It's good to remember that this was a story where Rocky might not have
ever had another moment in the spotlight like he did that one fateful night in
Philadelphia on our country's bicentennial…and he would have been okay with
it. Rocky became a champion not as a boxer, but as a human being,
as did Adrian, and as did Mickey. Three
lonely, pained souls brought it out in one another, and no sequel was necessary
to believe their lives would continue to be extraordinary, even in simple ways.
Video ***
I don't know if we'll ever get a truly specta
Audio ***1/2
DTS HD brings a more expansive listening experience than before...much of the film is undemanding, but Bill Conti's classic score sounds more deep and vibrant than ever, and the classic finale opens up a wider range of enveloping surround than you remember.
Features 1/2*
What the hell? I don't know if it's because Fox
authored this Blu-ray as opposed to MGM for the
Summary:
Rocky is still the undisputed champion of the underdog movies, and it looks and sounds solid on Blu-ray, but someone threw in the towel when it came to the extras, making it hard for me to recommend the upgrade if you already own the DVD.
