Whenever you think of the words "sports movie", nine times
out of ten it’ll be one of the Rocky movies that immediately comes to mind.
Another addition of the Sylvester Stallone oeuvre that has ingrained itself
permanently into pop culture, it is also some of the best and, at times,
cheesiest boxing action in the history of cinema. Of course, as is the case
with any highly-lauded franchise, any new instalments are going to be treated
with supreme scepticism by the audience. We saw plenty of this earlier in the
year with new additions to Mad Max (outstanding), Jurassic Park (pointless) and
Terminator (thoroughly disappointing), so we’ve already gotten a decent
spectrum of how this could turn out.
So, with the upstart director of the surprise success Fruitvale Station at the
helm, Stallone coming back as the Italian Stallion himself and franchise
producer Irwin Winkler giving his support to the production, how did this turn
out? 