ROCKY IV: ROCKY VS. DRAGO

 

ROCKY IV: ROCKY VS. DRAGO is writer-director-star Sylvester Stallone's reinterpretation of his famed ROCKY IV, one of the ultimate examples of 1980s American pop culture. I wasn't able to see this at its only recent theatrical showing, but I did view it on AppleTV. 

There's a bit of a difference between ROCKY VS. DRAGO and the original ROCKY IV. The main change is the tone. Stallone has tamped down or removed most of the cheesy aspects of ROCKY IV (fans of Paulie's robot are going to be sorely disappointed). The thing is, the cheesiness of ROCKY IV is what made it so entertaining. 

The pacing of ROCKY VS. DRAGO is also much quicker than that of ROCKY IV. (Even with added material, it only runs about 90 minutes.) I assume that Stallone used faster cuts here because that's what 21st audiences are used to, but for me I thought the pace was too fast at times--there's more than a few instances of choppy editing. 

Most of the "new" scenes involve discussions between Rocky and Adrian (Talia Shire gets more to do here than in the original ROCKY IV). According to reviews Stallone also used a number of alternate takes. Stallone also changed the aspect ratio from 1.85:1 to 2.35:1. I thought this move was strange--did Stallone do this to make the film seem more epic? 

The thing is, ROCKY VS. DRAGO is meant to be a more intimate, serious film. Almost all the humorous elements have been taken out, and even Rocky's climatic "Everybody can change" speech seems muted here. I have the feeling that Stallone was influenced by the CREED films, and that he wondered what would happen if he took one of the earlier Rocky adventures and made it more like the recent Creed stories. ROCKY IV was an obvious choice, since Ivan Drago is such a factor in CREED II. 

ROCKY VS. DRAGO is interesting, especially if you are a fan of the Rocky franchise. But did Sylvester Stallone really need to do a George Lucas on one of his most famous movies? Stallone certainly has the right to do so--it's his film, his character. I still prefer the original ROCKY IV. Special editions of famous movies are not necessarily better ones.