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Here’s a question: Does Rocky still stand up today after modern boxing epics?
No.
Sure, this is the film that set up the, now well-worn out, tropes of the genre. Big guy, big heart; shy girlfriend; everybody’s local hero turned champ; uplifting plot concerning the triumph of the poor man. It’s just that modern boxing films have been so much more inventive.
The film hinges on its central protagonist. Where recent efforts have delivered compelling portraits of intriguing characters, Rocky centres on a sack of meat with less personality than the pigs hanging in the factory; a character whose perpetual sniffing is only emphasised by a voice full of flu. Someone please get this man a Strepsil.
For all its macho posturing, the empty-headed narrative is just plain sleep-inducing. Or maybe I just fail to see the romance in two bruised and battered men punching each other to near death?
