Rocky IV (1985, Sylvester Stallone), the director’s cut

Sylvester Stallone’s director’s cut of Rocky IV arrives four sequels and thirty-five years after the film’s original release. Stallone says it’s for the thirty-fifth anniversary; Robert Doornick (who voiced Burt Young’s robot in the original cut and owns the copyright on the robot) says it’s because Stallone didn’t want to renew with him and had to cut out all the robot scenes.

So, if “Rocky vs. Drago” replaces the original cut in streaming services… we’ll find out.

There are some other changes to the movie besides the goofy robot being gone, like a trimmed-down version of Rocky III tacked onto the beginning. It’s weird because it goes on way too long and isn’t a good encapsulation of the film–it also emphasizes Stallone’s relationship with Carl Weathers to enlarge their relationship in the Rocky IV footage. Only there’s no actual echoing between the two. Because Stallone doesn’t change Rocky IV’s story or its beats, he just excises a few of them. He doesn’t do anything to fix the problems, which are obviously insurmountable because it’s fairly terrible.

Stallone’s writing, direction, John W. Wheeler, and Don Zimmerman’s editing are all quite bad. There’s no new editor credited with the Rocky vs. Drago cuts, but whoever did Final Cut Proing or Adobe Premiering doesn’t have much in the way of timing. Though, since this version comes after Creed II, which is a sequel to this film, bringing back Dolph Lundgren decades later, you could almost read something into how Lundgren’s cut to see if it implies character development. Only it doesn’t. And Rocky vs. Drago isn’t like cut to tie into Creed II. Stallone’s just cobbling something together here—does anyone believe he didn’t have the full director’s cut of the original in 1985, with that craptacular “We Can All Change” speech to the Soviet people, who embrace Rocky over Gorby? So why not tie into Rocky V. Nothing would be better than seeing all the stupid patriotism end with Stallone brain-damaged. It’d explain his final speech.

The movie also misses out on soundtrack revising, which… I mean, why not. Something to juice it up.

Also, that last fight is poorly done, especially after seeing Stallone learn how to direct action in the intervening decades since he shot this film. It’s not exactly any more embarrassing than the original Rocky IV, but it’s definitely pointless.

Especially since it’s all about Stallone, Weathers, and Lundgren all basically just being toxically masculine narcissists. It might be a little different for Stallone and Lundgren—because Weather’s hubris literally gets him killed, which doesn’t not have a racial component to it. Like, Weather is openly Black here. Bad dad. Stallone’s a bad dad too. Stallone made movies about these guys being bad dads. It’s such a weak revisit.

Maybe I’m just embarrassed I thought it might be any different, like Stallone might’ve actually tried. Because even with the miserable mise-en-scène of Rocky IV, there are obvious places you could just cut it better if you had access to the footage.

Finally, because I can’t any more with the rest of it, does Talia Shire come off as miserable in the original version? Like she’s raising a son and then tending a douchebag husband? Not to mention Young.

Oh, okay, this bit is the last—Young. Stallone stops playing him for laughs but keeps the pratfalls, which just makes him seem like a despondent drunk the whole time.

So fingers crossed Doornick’s for real, and they pull the original, robotic Rocky IV and only Rocky vs. Drago remains. It’s a futile gesture of egomania from Stallone, which, coincidentally, describes the film in either cut.

Rocky IV’s awful.

Assault on Precinct 13 (1976, John Carpenter)

The titular assault in Assault on Precinct 13 doesn’t start until just over halfway through (and not at Precinct 13, but whatever). Until that point, Carpenter methodically lays out the elements to synthesize at the sieged police station. He introduces a tense gang situation, a new lieutenant (Austin Stoker), a convict being transferred to death row (Darwin Joston) and a man (Martin West) possibly unwisely traveling through the ghetto with his daughter (Kim Richards).

The way Carpenter portrays the L.A. ghetto is interesting. It’s empty, quiet and sometimes rather beautiful. He also treats the gang members like zombies–they don’t talk, they have no personalities. They’re just young and multiracial. Assault is a warning against young urban men of all creeds and colors.

Carpenter timestamps the scenes, bringing a scene of reality and commonplace to the film. When the timestamps finally do disappear, it’s because the audience–like the cast–is trapped.

At that point, Assault has its most beautiful sequence. The gang assaulting the police station is using silencers and, as they destroy it, the only sounds are of papers flying, windows breaking and drywall puncturing. It’s otherworldly.

When Carpenter finally does bring in the outside world, the timestamps return and the film’s changed entirely. In the midst of the rushed action, the film becomes about its characters and their relationships.

Great performances from Stoker, Joston, Zimmer and Tony Burton. Charles Cyphers has a nice smaller role. Excellent photography from Douglas Knapp, amazing editing from Carpenter.

Assault‘s a masterpiece.

Rocky Balboa (2006, Sylvester Stallone)

I’m fairly sure there’s never been a film like Rocky Balboa before. The closest is probably Escape from the Planet of the Apes. Rocky Balboa is about its story and its characters, but it’s also about the audience’s pre-exisiting relationship not with the characters, but with Rocky movies as a piece of history. Stallone uses this relationship early and sparsely, to establish Balboa as something worth watching. Once he’s done, he moves on to more interesting things, but Balboa maintains a mystique about it. The idea of a movie character aging in a film’s absence is one infrequently dealt with and usually poorly (The Color of Money). As a concept, it ought to work. (Clint Eastwood once said he’d do a ‘Dirty Harry Goes Fishing’ sequel). But Rocky Balboa is the first time I can think of it’s worked and it works really, really well. It’s easily the best film of the series (which, minus the first one, isn’t hard).

The boxing aspect of Rocky Balboa comes in so late, it’s actually unimportant to what’s going on in the movie itself. If Rocky had been a bowling champion, it’d be the same degree. Well, maybe not bowling. Arm-wrestling maybe. (I can’t remember the name of Stallone’s arm-wrestling movie). He’s old and he’s alone and it’s about him working his way out of a long rut, trying to reform a family around himself. When the boxing finally does come along, it seems like it might not even–if it weren’t a Rocky movie–go anywhere.

Stallone directs Balboa quieter than I’ve seen anyone direct a modern film in a long time. It’s a loving, patient approach and it works beautifully. Only when it gets to the boxing match, shot to look like a televised bout (on DV), does the film lose that understated beauty. Watching it, I wondered if Stallone intended it to look different because it actually was so removed from the rest of the film. I also wondered if it’d look different on DVD, once everything had been digitized. During the boxing match Stallone stumbles a little, trying to find the right way to present the story in film. These stumbles are never annoying though, just visible.

The acting from the principles is great–Stallone’s very aware of what he can and can not do and he only gives himself the stuff he can do. Similarly, Burt Young’s got a bunch of great stuff to do too. Geraldine Hughes plays a grown-up version of a character from the first film and she’s fantastic. Antonio Tarver is fine as the adversary, with some too weak scenes but enough to be a problem. As Rocky Jr., Milo Ventimiglia acts a little bit too much with his styled hair, but Stallone does a lot of work in those scenes and carries him through. The other scenes Ventimiglia’s in, he needs to look like a men’s watch model and manages. The stuff between Stallone and Young is great, but familiar. The stuff between Stallone and Hughes is great and new and somehow more rewarding, because this relationship is what kick-starts Rocky Balboa‘s story.

Going in to Balboa, I wasn’t expecting much. I was expecting something decent or at least inoffensively watchable, but certainly not something great. It was a really nice and totally unbelievable surprise.