Rocky Balboa

Rocky Balboa is a character I grew up with, though I did not grow up with him entirely sequentially. The first Rocky movie I saw was the second one. (In Rocky II, he wins the title in a fight he was losing going into the 15th round, but before that he spends too much money on tacky crap, Adrian falls into a coma during childbirth, and Rocky needs to know from Apollo if the champ gave it his all in their first meeting.) Somehow we had it on videotape, taped from television, when I was about nine or ten, and I probably watched that movie a hundred times. Only when the third movie came out (Riches make Rocky soft, Clubber Lang whoops ass through the heavyweight ranks, Thunderlips doesn't realize he and Rock are taking part in an exhibition, Mickey dies, Clubber pounds Rocky ignominiously, Rocky and Apollo become friends and share some awkward moments, Rocky beats Clubber in a rematch) did I fall into order. Nonetheless, from the first moment I laid eyes on the underdog series of movies that have been the Rocky films, I was hooked. I've bought in entirely.

Rocky (underdog from Philly is going nowhere, loses his locker after a desultory fight with Spider Rico, courts a mousy pet shop worker, gets shot at title against Apollo Creed because of oddities, has self doubts, works out in greatest montage ever, goes the distance with the champ) is a legitimately fantastic movie, one of my five favorites of all time. If you don't at least like the first one, I honestly do not know if I can like you as a human being.

A lot of people like Rocky II the least, but I'll always have a soft spot for that tattered VHS tape, and in any case, I liked the idea of Rocky Balboa winning the title. Rocky III and Rocky IV (Big Russian dude with ice queen wife emerges from the labs of Moscow and seems the perfect fighting machine, Russian dude -- Ivan Drago -- kills Apollo, Rocky goes to Siberia, runs up mountains and lifts logs, Rocky helps win Cold War) were silly but they were silliness of a piece.

Rocky V did not happen. So I have no pithy plot synopsis of it.

Which leads us up to last night, which was opening night of Rocky Balboa, the sixth installment of the Rocky series, but the first sequel not to carry the Roman numeral at the end because Sylvester Stallone did not want to acknowledge Rocky V either.

You can read all of the reviews. Some have been bad. Some have been quite good. But I can give you a simple way to assess whether you will like the latest movie: Do you fundamentally buy into the character and story of Rocky Balboa? It's as simple as that. If you see Rocky as a caricature, if you see him as a dolt spouting out "Yo, Adrian" at every turn, you'll see this last (God, let's hope so) Rocky movie as absurd. But if, like me, you cannot help but like the character, if you have bought into the absurd twists and turns, if you know that beneath the mookish exterior is embodiment of the everyman as we'd like to think we are, you will really like Rocky Balboa. In a sense this is the most real movie in the series since the first sequel. Even I, with my vast blind spot for Rocky, see the third and fourth movies as basically cartoons. Cartoons that I love, but cartoons to be sure. But the first two strike me as very real. This latest one is a return to form -- Stallone wrote and directed it, and as you can see from any review, positive or not, it might be the most personal movie he has ever made. (I'll spare you plot details -- you can find them anywhere.) There are those who see Stallone grappling with his own age issues, and find that too transparent on screen. To me, that is beside the point, or more precisely, it is the point -- of course Stallone decided to look inward: old boxer seeing mortality and wants another shot at glory, spouts truisms along the way = old actor known for action movies sees mortality and wants to wrestle with it. But because Rocky is such an earnest and fundamentally likable character, the truisms themselves come across not as hackneyed, but as earned.

The movie is not perfect. But its imperfections are of a piece. If you have not bought into Rocky by now, another training montage and stylized fight are not going to seal the deal. But if you are like me, and sadly, some of you are, some of that old Rocky magic will set in. You'll ache when he tries to come to grips with Adrian's death, you'll bob and weave and throw feints during the fight, and you'll get a lump in your throat and mist in your eyes at the end when . . . well, if you are with me up to now, just go see it.

Grading the Rocky Series: Rocky: A+ Rocky II: B+ Rocky III: A- Rocky IV: B+ Rocky V: F+ Rocky Balboa: A-