This look at Sylvester Stallone’s Director’s Cut of Rocky VI was originally released in 2021 when the new edit was released. It’s been updated and re-released in conjunction with renewed interest in the Rocky series – and Stallone’s place in it in particular Creed III.
There is basically nothing wrong with that Rocky IV, a film of ultra-commercialized 1980s beauty. Sylvester Stallone cleverly capitalized on the anti-Russian boast of Rambo: First Blood Part II to bring Western audiences an underdog Cold War story that audiences will enjoy. The Enemy: Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren), the pulverizing, combative savior of the Soviet Union. “Whatever it hits, it destroys,” boasts Drago’s ashtray voice. When the Russian kills Rocky’s former antagonist-turned-best-friend Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) in an exhibition match, it’s clear he’s expecting a typically American supper, and Stallone serves it up with plenty of MTV blitz then in vogue.
Rocky IV is an important film of its time. Nine films in the franchise, that’s it still the top-selling entry of the lot. It’s nobody’s favorite Rocky movie, but nobody in the history of the world has ever started watching it and then turned it off. This is a scientifically proven fact. And it’s a commonly accepted truth that not a single person on the planet has ever wanted a director’s cut.
Except for Stallone.
Given its remarkably slim 91-minute narrative, Rocky IV is more training montage than film. When Stallone announced his plan for an extended director’s cut, the idea sounded like water to an SNL digital short. But the actor-director was dead serious, and now he is Rocky IV
The original Rocky made Stallone a global superstar. It won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1976 network, All the President’s men And taxi driver. The sequels were all snapshots of Stallone’s career as they were made: Rocky II is about an overnight success struggling with the demands of sudden fame; Rocky III struggles with losing the hunger that plagues champions/stars at the top of their game; rocky v shows the inevitable demise of the champion; Rocky Balboa refutes F. Scott Fitzgerald’s claim that there are no second acts in American life; and the Believe Trilogy explores the meaning of legacy. But Rocky IV it really isn’t about much.
Apollo and Rocky stare at impending retirement, but the former’s hinted fears that Russia might take over the boxing world with lab-created supermen ruthlessly transcends any kind of meaningful introspection. There’s a hint of John Henry folk legend in there, but at its core it’s a revenge flick laced with sugar-sweet lip service to Americans and Russians learning to see each other as fellow human beings (which gets the entire Politburo standing up and cheering conclusion of the film).
So is Stallone’s recut version, Rocky IV: Rocky vs. Drago, an improvement? In several cases absolutely. As shown in a re-making-of documentary available on YouTube, Stallone is appalled at the number of badly missed punches that made it into the 1985 theatrical version. He’s proud of the ferocity of the last fight (as it should be, considering a series of flush Lundgren punches to his chest left him with a swollen heart that landed him in intensive care), but in today’s inflated HD world these occasional puffs are evident. In the recut almost every hit lands with a realistic bang, although some of the absurdly jacked-up sound design has actually been scaled down.
Stallone has also gone back and added numerous alternate takes that completely alter Apollo Creed’s tragic arc. Going against Drago is no longer an act of stupid hubris, but an obligation, as illustrated in Duke’s eulogy, in which Creed’s trainer and defaulting father eloquently defends his fighter’s fatal decision: “The warrior has the right to choose his life and his.” manner of death.”
This is reminiscent of a newly added moment in Creed’s fight with Drago where Rocky begs his friend, “Don’t do this to me.” “I’m doing this for me,” snaps Apollo. This gives Rocky’s inevitable fight with Drago a deeper purpose than revenge; He, too, obeys the warrior code and doesn’t care if everyone, even his loving wife Adrian (Talia Shire), thinks it’s suicide.
How this fits with Drago’s reconfigured bow is tricky. In the theatrical version, Drago’s later rebellion against his caretakers felt like the action of a stubborn child. (“I fight for myself!”) In this version, Drago is portrayed as a clumsy participant in Russian propaganda. He tries to answer questions at the press conference but is quickly interrupted by his Chatterbox manager. There’s a human under the robotic facade, and thanks Creed IIwe know what his resistance will ultimately cost him.
Unfortunately, Stallone eliminated Brigitte Nielsen’s outraged outburst, where her sincere-sounding claims of death threats against her husband are laughed at by the media. In the Director’s Cut, Drago may have a slightly more human dimension (his confused perspective during James Brown’s performance of Living in America makes him feel like a 5-year-old kid lost at a carnival), but Nielsen’s apparatchik is up been reduced to a cold-hearted caricature. That feels like an unfair compromise.
What Stallone can’t completely erase is the underlying silliness of a film shot and edited to appeal to music video obsessive viewers. He convincingly defends the power of montage in documentary, and he hasn’t messed with those sequences too much in this cut. (The biggest change is giving the flashbacks a sepia hue in the “No Easy Way Out” sequence.) He’s kicking himself up for omitting the meatiest elements of the drama, but the scenes he did in this one rework to breathe are completely at odds with the adrenaline pumping aesthetic of the film he created.
He’s washed out the comic book vibes of Bill Butler’s cinematography, leaving this oversized entertainment film dead only inside. And most controversially, he erased all traces of Paulie’s robot Sico. In doing so, he’s reduced Burt Young’s performance to next to nothing, which mitigates the impact of Paulie’s goofy touching outburst of thanks to Rocky before the fight. (“If I could just unpack and step out and be someone else, I’d want to be you.”) Paulie is an integral part of the Balboa saga, and he deserves better.
Stallone’s passion for the character of Drago is contagious, and watching him meticulously refine 35-year-old scenes in a Sunset Strip editing suite is an unexpected thrill. The warrior spirit is very much alive in the 76-year-old author. Stallone was left out Creed IIIand he’s been estranged from the franchise since he no longer owns the rights. But he still has a strong sense of responsibility for the story and its legacy. No one should be surprised that they’re still interested in how people view these films and what they see when they watch them decades after their release.
Rocky IV: Rocky vs Drago can be rented or bought over Amazon, vuduand other digital platforms.