Rocky Balboa

Getting old is a bitch, and every artist that lasts long enough inevitably has to tackle that last, inglorious battle. After nearly fifteen years of career mis-fires, Sylvester Stallone steps into that ring for a final round with Rocky Balboa.

If the first Rocky in 1976 was a jazzy, brooding sonata, Rocky Balboa would be a full-on concerto. The first Rocky was studiously minimal; Rocky Balboa is assiduously ornamented with the flourishes of modern craftsmanship. Flash frames, wry and self-conscious dialogue, sweeping crane shots, and two rounds of HBO pay-per-view caliber fight coverage. In 2006, the streets of Philadelphia seem to be perpetually bathed in a furious white light, which threaten to swallow Rocky and his legacy whole – but only if the lapses into monochromatic melancholy don’t get him first. It’s sleek, gleaming, and modern, even at its most downcast.

Both films follow the same template, where the underdog gets offered a shot at glory, which must be paid for through unbearable pain and an iron will. In the beginning, Rocky was alone. In the latest installment, Rocky is alone again, but for his faithful Sancho Panza, the alcoholic Paulie. His beloved wife has died; his son is estranged; and the glory of his past is fading into dinner table recollections and brief photo opportunities.

Fortunately, this is a Rocky movie and not self-indulgent poetic mopery. When a timely theoretical match up pits a Rocky in his prime against Mason “The Line” Dixon, the currently undefeated heavyweight champion, Rocky accepts a bid to return to the ring for an exhibition fight. Instead of raging, raging at the dying of the light, Rocky straps on some boxing gloves and takes it to the ring. He’s a man who’s found one meaning for his life, and now he’s thirty years down that road and doesn’t know how to face a world without the one act that defines him. The first Rocky spilled out those fears and hopes in monologues that verged on the confessional. The aged Rocky Balboa conducts his existential journey under a succession of haloic streetlights and extended, artfully lit conversations.

Technology has granted filmmakers an extensive toolbox of effects to create things beyond what the eye can perceive. Enthusiastic and unskilled filmmakers have inundated us with an avalanche of impressions that have little meaning other than “that’s cool to look at”. So when Rocky finds himself lost in the blinding glare of some headlights, while Paulie shuffles away in slow-motion in the back corner of the frame, the sadness and nostalgia this image summons is only temporary. In 2006, it seems like a poignant image. Ten years from now, this image will be dated – almost laughably so.

That particular image is an unfortunate choice, as the quiet, lonely image of Rocky throwing desultory punches against a heavy bag in a cluttered backyard is far more effective. The heart and soul of every Rocky movie is the purchase of self-respect with the wages of pain. It’s the lesson his opponent, capably played by Antonio Tarver, has to learn. It’s a fight that everyone must face alone every day. Time fades everything, and the glory of youth fades as quickly as the body decays. When Rocky lurches into the ring for his final round, his son pleads with him to pack it in and Rocky slurs “I gotta go out the way I gotta go out.” This is the heart of his triumph; not the allure of winning, but the pride in beating back the grey wastes of time for one extra round. Victory isn’t essential, but a shining moment of resistance is.

Stallone’s skill as a filmmaker might never rise above the level of mere competence, but he is well in tune enough to know what we all want to see. We want the pain of a heavyweight bout, rendered as viscerally as Dolby surround sound can deliver it. As an impressionistic assault on pushing yourself to your limits, to see what you have there… it’s bound to set your pulse racing.

Getting the HBO Boxing crew to stand in for the opening two rounds is a nice touch. Given the current state of boxing, I’d just as soon watch the 10 staged rounds of Balboa vs. Dixon, but I’ll take what I can get. Ten years from now, the flash frames, color treatments, and pop-cuts will look dated, and in 2036, the final fight sequence will look as dated and out-of-touch as the final montage of Rocky I. The miracle here is that the implausible premise works like gangbusters for the last twenty minutes, and you’ll actually believe a 60 year old can stand up in the ring with a heavyweight champ.

As a meditation on aging, and watching the sun set on your life, Rocky Balboa is adding nothing new to the discussion – On Golden Pond has nothing to worry about. Time will be as cruel to Rocky Balboa as it will be to all of us. For the here and now, however, we get another chance to go one more round. The chance to vicariously stand tall in the faces of all our fears and shortcomings, run up those museum steps one last time, and vicariously throw our arms in the air in victory.