In Defense of Rocky V

Being as covid-conscious as I’ve had to be is quite the lonely endeavor these days. Often, it’s been a lot easier to sit at home and revisit movies I liked-or didn’t- and reflect on how they either were as good as I remember (but for entirely different reasons than when I initially watched), or better than I remember (now that I’ve had a chance to reflect as an ADULT- adult). The latter brings me here, presenting a different take on the much-maligned Rocky V.

Many a long-form pop culture tome has been written on the parralels of Rocky and the masculine journey. Which is why it surprised me how many aspects of Rocky’s chatacter arc were glossed over in order to paint the series as an out of touch, badly-aged snapshot of hyper-masculinity. It seems they all focus on the fact that his fighting strategy, and approach to life, was mainly to take hits till he outlasted whatever came at him. And on its surface, it IS a fair take. By the fourth movie, a glossy testament to the power of a good training montage, capped off with the best-presented and most pointless fight in movie history, “be MORE” man than him” could easily be seen as the mantra of the series. In doing so, the fifth does not make any sense.

Which is why I’m here, writing this equally pointless three-point argument on why the fifth not only makes more sense than every entry after the second, it is far better than you think. Well, at least better than the fourth.

Rocky V Brings Rocky Back to Earth

Between III and IV, Rocky transforms from a regular man in a character-driven story of extraordinary circumstances to a larger-than-life avatar. In doing so, the average viewer forgets that for the majority of his life, Rocky was functionally illiterate. I hate to break it to you, but Rocky V is exactly the sort of thing that would happen to a person who was only literate for a fifth of their life-while simultaneously being the richest and most famous they’ve ever been.

I have a huge appreciation for how Stallone wrote Rocky’s literacy arc- down to Rocky reading the newspaper aloud at Adrian’s grave in “Creed”- with a caveat. You see the world open up for him in II, as letters become words. You see the world become too big for him in III, when words become stories. And then all that character development drops in the 4th, when he tries to write his own stories. Rocky V is a course correction, and could have easily fit as the third or fourth in the series. If you watch it after II or III, instead of after IV, you’ll see how out of place the fourth actually is. And, how unrealistic it would have been to stop the story there.

Rocky is a Story About Life thru Boxing, not a Story About a Boxer

People ALSO forget the tagline for the series-right through to the third installment in “Creed”- is, “no one hits harder than life.” Which makes his “it’s not about how hard you can hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep going” read completely differently. Rocky goes through an unimaginable amount of grief over eight movies; literally every character in the movie does. When you review how many hits they all take, it’s a bit hard to bill it as a series meant to lift the spirit. However it does- simply because it is real. No one tells you that getting older is a matter of out-living who doesn’t and figuring out how to live with that and find some joy or purpose between, but it is.

Which brings me back to the claim that it is an out-of touch snapshot of hyper-masculinity. Were we all watching the same movies? Rocky cries in all 8. Paulie cracks apart (there is another post on how Stallone accurately wrote a casual alcoholic). All of them struggle with what it means to be a man. Apollo died from his struggle. The fifth saw Rocky struggle the same way Apollo did, in defining who he was outside of what he was known for. The difference was Apollo tried to hold on to it through a fight he never needed to take (at the expense of his family), and Rocky tried to hold on to it through mentoring a new fighter (at the expense of his family). His fight at the end was his first attempt to close a chapter, rather than let life close in on him. Was that point better covered in the excellent “Rocky Balboa”? Possibly. But you couldn’t get there without what was covered in V.

But of all the solid arguments on character arcs and story development, I think a lot of people miss one common-sense detail…

Not One Member of that Family Was Good With Money.

Did you sleep through Rocky II? What did you think was gonna happen?