Eye of the Tiger: Rocky III (1982)

I came home today wondering what I was going to watch. I sat down and thought about how I hadn't seen a Rocky film in a while. I want to finish the series before the year is out for sure. The problem was that I was so let down by Rocky II that I really didn't want to have to watch Rocky III because I was afraid it would tear down a great character even more. I really wasn't looking forward to this one. Even so, I put it on and gritted my teeth for another possible dive. So did the champ fall further from glory, or did he get back up and show us the eye of the tiger? Hit that jump square in the jaw, and find my thoughts on the other side!


As is seemingly tradition with the Rocky series, the start of Rocky III is the end of Rocky II. Thankfully it wasn't quite so much of the end. We see Rocky beat an already stunned Apollo Creed and he gets the title belt. Through a series of flashes and a montage, we learn that it's been 3 years since the big win, and Rocky has successfully beaten 10 title challenges, and is still the champion. His life has dramatically improved, and we see him even doing some commercials which he failed at horribly in Rocky II. He wears suits and ties now and no longer has that "street" look about him. All the while, a new fighter watches Rocky and works his own way to the top and finally challenges him. But this guy isn't like the others, he's a real monster!

Right away, I was shaking my head as they seemed to take what I loved about Rocky, and flushed it down the drain. He almost didn't seem like the same person, and neither did his wife. They were caught up in their easy life and suits and fancy house and commercials. What caught my attention though, was that Rocky's trainer, Mickey, seemed to share my opinions! "Wait a minute" I thought, "I'm not crazy, even the characters in the movie see it!" This gave me some hope since this meant it was an intentional part of the film, and not just a complete lack of understanding of the character. The fame and glory had in fact gotten into Rocky's head and changed him, but not for the better. He was soft now.

Clubber Lang is a killer, and he pretty much proves it!

When Clubber Lang challenges Rocky, and he accepts against Mickey's protests, the training begins. But you should know, that this is still only about 1/4 into the movie! Rocky still isn't taking it seriously and does all his training in front of fans with a live band and bubbles blowing on him, as he stops to pose for pictures. Meanwhile, Clubber is training his guts out and looks like a killer! At the half way point, and I'm sorry, but this will be a bit of a spoiler, Rocky gets totally creamed by Clubber and loses in the 2nd round!

That's not the worst part though, but I won't get into that. That's too much of a spoiler to be sure.

After his loss, Rocky is himself lost. He doesn't know how to handle being so utterly destroyed, and feeling like he was carried with fake title challenges for all those years. No one can pull him out of it, but Apollo Creed, of all people, shows up to save the day! Apollo knows what it's like, and vows to pull him through with new training because he can tell how to make Rocky win! I know this is a lot of story, but this is pretty much when the REAL movie starts!

Apollo trains Rocky and they become close friends. HOW COOL IS THAT?!

If it isn't clear by now, there is a TON of character work and development going on in this film. Even Adrian gets into it, yelling and talking some sense into Rocky when he seems like he's still going to give up. The training sequences, which were so short and terrible in Rocky II are long and grand and show Rocky learning yet more to add to his fighting style. This time rhythm and dodging; basically everything to make him fleet of foot. One of the things that always bugged me about Rocky was that he always just stood there and just kept getting punched in the face. FINALLY he was going to learn how to dodge! I loved it!

I can't tell you how cool I thought it was that Apollo Creed was now the one helping and training Rocky. The turn just seemed to make sense and Apollo's friendship felt genuine. He was living vicariously through Rocky, because even though he knew he was good himself, he also was man enough to recognize that only Rocky could have a chance of taking Clubber down.

Rocky's training shows, and the final fight is fast and quick and swift like never before!

So how was the action in this iteration? Well it wasn't as solidly timed as in the 2nd film, there were plenty of times I saw missed "hits", but even so, the action was high paced, high energy, and Clubber made an amazing opponent! Clubber is of course played by Mr. T. I thought seeing Mr. T would be just so cheesy, but he's so young, tough, serious and vicious looking, that I almost didn't recognize him as the now comical Mr. T. Oh yeah, and his famous line "I pity the fool" actually came from Rocky III!

While the first half of the film was yet again setting up Rocky to fail, this time it seemed to make sense. Rocky came across as far smarter than in Rocky II and it really just seemed as though he had matured. I could hardly believe it when the film took a sudden and oh so right turn for the awesome when Apollo Creed came in and the whole film from then on was just fun and great and I loved it! Oh, did I mention that Hulk Hogan is in this and has a "wrestling vs boxing" match, almost MMA style at the start? That was pretty fun too! Mr. T made Clubber Lang come to life, and he was actually far more imposing than I've ever seen Mr. T! All in all, I really liked the movie, and it was a huge relief after the miserable movie that was Rocky II. I'm so glad they brought the Rocky back that I loved in the second half of the movie. He's got the eye of the tiger!