A Short Review of Rocky II

Surely this time I can actually write a short review.  I am going to try really hard.  Ready?  Ok here we go.

Adrian doesn’t want Rocky to box because of his bad eye and the kid on the way.  Rocky tries real hard to stay away even though Apollo Creed (still love that name) is calling him chicken.  Rocky works at a meat factory (pounding his meat everyday? yes I know, cheap joke) then gets fired.  Decides its time to get back in the ring.  Adrian almost loses baby, goes into a coma.  Rocky can’t train or focus.  Adrian comes out of coma and tells Rocky to do her one favor, “Win Rocky, Win.”  Rocky gets that slogan on a T-shirt, trains real hard during music montage, gets into the ring and whoops the ass of the pompous black dude in front of a mostly white audience chanting his name.  Again, things that make you go hmmm.

I mean come on.  He is a humble, from the street, hard-working, blue-collar white guy going against (in the first three movies at least) an over-the-top flamboyant uppity loud mouth of a black guy and despite his physical short comings in comparison to the well-trained, stronger, faster and better boxer, he wins.  Even in the first movie, when he doesn’t win, he wins.

Despite the obvious race war under current this is still a decent movie.  It does not have the quality of writing that is in the first (an Oscar winner) or the raw action in the 3rd and 4th, but it is still a decent film.  I would probably have to put it pretty low on the ranking list of Rocky movies because it is too sappy, too long with too little boxing.

PS Yeah I did it.  That was under 300 words.  Now that is a short review!