The Fight Continues: Rocky II (1979)

It's about time I continued on with the Rocky franchise, so it's on to Rocky II. I quite liked the first film, and I remembered all the training and final fight fondly. I liked seeing the characters grow and their relationships change, and I was expecting something similar. I have heard that some of the Rocky movies aren't very good, but I always forget which ones are hated, and which are held up in admiration like a champ's fist. I'm not sure what everyone else's opinion of this sequel is, but I know what my own is, and you'll find that after the jump.


Rocky II picks up at the end of the first film. Actually, it starts several minutes before the end, and we see a good chunk of the fight between Apollo Creed and Rocky, and most, if not all, of the celebration afterward. Then where the first film ended, Rocky II continues and we follow the fighters in ambulance as they head to the hospital. At the end of the fight, Apollo had said to Rocky in the ring that there would never be a rematch. Now, however, the press is making such a big deal about Rocky going the distance of all 15 rounds, that Apollo feels forced to challenge him again. Unfortunately, the doctor tells Rocky that his eye is severely damaged and he should never fight again, or risk going blind. From here on we follow Rocky as he moves on with his life, but Apollo just won't let it go as rumours fly around that the fight was rigged, and that he would have lost the fight if it wasn't saved by the bell.

Rocky pops the question to Adrian early in the film

I was a little disappointed that they put so much of the end of the first film at the start of this one. There was so much, in fact, that I even wondered if there was something somehow wrong with my movie. When new content eventually starts rolling, it ended up being long, slow, and horribly boring. So much of the movie seemed to be focused on making Rocky look stupid, like how he is slow when reading. While there are some positive moments in his new married home-life with Adrian (Talia Shire), most of the movie seemed really negative. This was the last thing I wanted. I really liked Rocky, and they just spent a good half of this movie tearing him down and making him look bad.

It isn't until about half way through the movie that anything at all seems to happen. Finally Apollo's taunting gets to Rocky and his coach Mickey (Burgess Meredith) and they start training to take him on in a rematch. "Finally" I thought "we're going to see some action!" But I was wrong again. Rocky's heart just isn't in the training because Adrian is so against it, and he's lazy and doesn't work hard. This isn't the Rocky I know! Look at how long and hard he trained all by himself in the first film! The movie continues to drag on when Adrian gets sick from stress and strain (and other reasons I won't spoil) and again Rocky II comes to a halt.

It was only at the very very end that he suddenly kicks into high gear and we get one training montage, which really seems like only one long run with all these kids chasing him. Wait a minute... isn't his training supposed to be insanely hard? I just saw a group of 50+ kids run the whole course with him and up all those stairs! If anything, Rocky seemed diminished yet again.

Finally...something exciting happened

I do have to admit though, that the fight between Rocky and Apollo this time is way tougher and high energy. It had a good sense of the flow of the rounds passing, but again it just felt a little rushed sometimes. One of my complaints of the first film was that the hits didn't always look convincing, but this time they're much better done, even if there are a few slips still. I really liked the slow-motion punches and body blows we got to see at one point, and the whole fight is overall very exciting.

I'm not sure what to think here. There isn't as much character development with all the different characters, but at the same time, it's still more of the characters that I liked so much, which I guess is a good thing. I was just so incredibly bored for so much of the film except for the short training parts and the final fight against Apollo. I can see that there were improvements, I just hope those carry over into the next films and that the later films are more interesting to me than this one was.