Rocky II
Rocky II is actually my favorite Rocky movie. I can’t really say it’s better than the original but since I’m Franchise Fred, I’m more interested in what happens after the archetypal story than the archetypal story itself. What happens after Rocky goes the distance and makes it to the final round with Apollo Creed?
Well, he spends too much money because he’s a well-meaning guy who wants to do nice things for his loved ones. He can’t really work a day job because he’s just a fighter, and he’s no good at endorsements because he can’t read the cue cards, something that is ignored in Rocky III when he seems to do endorsements just fine. There’s really nothing left for him to do but rematch Apollo, and then how do you make the rematch different from the legendary first fight?
Tonally and visually, Rocky II looks just like the original so they could really be watched back to back as a two-parter. Actually, all the Rockys could because they all pick up right where the previous one left off, except Balboa, but this is really an extension. It dares to challenge the uplifting ending of its predecessor, which itself challenged the definition of “winning,” and say, “There is more to this story.”
The romance remains as Rocky proposes to Adrian and they have their son, which presents medical complications that are good drama while Rocky trains. He does refuse to see his premature infant until Adrian wakes from a coma, and it looks like several weeks pass. I get the spirit of having faith that she’ll wake up, but was that infant just sitting unattended in NICU while he waited?
There is a legitimate question about whether or not Rocky should accept the rematch. Was he just lucky to even last through the first fight? Apollo will certainly come at him harder this time. I think nobody plays the fragility of the male ego like Stallone, and Rocky II is probably where he takes that theme to the next level, or at least shows he’ll never stop exploring it.
The first Rocky may read as more specific than an entire gender study. It’s one underdog who happens to be a male boxer, fine. Now everybody is still coming at poor Rocky even after he’s accomplished something great, still telling him he’s not good enough. So he has to show them the only way he knows how. He’s a fighter. It’s all he knows, and there is something that’s just magnetic about watching Stallone work out, as we’ll see in three of the next four sequels too. He’s in pain, but he fights through the pain, the pain he’s putting himself through because he has to endure if he’s going to be ready to suffer more pain in the actual fight. If he can do it, maybe we all can do it, and maybe we should all suffer to prove something to ourselves, but I’m kinda getting ahead of myself to Rocky III and IV.
Rocky II arguably features the best final bout, the rematch between Apollo and Rocky. It goes on for about 15 minutes and I think we all remember it as twice as long because it feels so epic as they wear each other down. Rocky still doesn’t put his hands up, but you really have to appreciate how the fights in each Rocky movie tell their own narrative. It’s not just hitting people for 15 minutes, and this fight builds to both fighters’ breaking point.
This would be a good time to mention the music of Rocky too. Of course everybody remembers “Gonna Fly Now,” the Rocky theme as it were, but Bill Conti’s instrumental score is aces all around. The fight music is so rousing that it is played in several of the series’ final bouts. Just hearing it makes me want to work out more.
