Why after all these years are you pressing forward with
“Rocky VI”?
It can’t be money. There have been no news reports of you
being in shaky financial condition. When you were one of
Hollywood’s top dogs, you earned your eight-figure
paychecks by giving the people what they wanted until they
no longer wanted it. You stayed at the party too long with
“Rocky V” and “Rambo III,” but what the hell. You
got yours and have lived a good life.
The recent announcement about yet another “Rocky”
picture took no one by surprise, since you’ve been making
noise for years that you wanted to pursue it. You’ve said
Rocky now will be a widower — nice touch. Nothing against
Talia Shire, but how many more cutaway shots of Adrian
flinching while Rocky’s head was being crushed like an
overripe cantaloupe could the poor woman endure? Shire must
never want to be told by another director, “OK, Talia, in
this scene, look worried!”
The part of your announcement that left me and many others
scratching our heads is that Rocky will be climbing back
into the ring.
Sly, c’mon. You’re still in great shape, but all the
stomach crunches and Grecian Formula in the world can’t
mask the fact that you’re 60 years old. Yeah, the Rolling
Stones can get away with warbling “Satisfaction” at your
age, but do you really expect us to believe that a guy who
recalls the Eisenhower presidency can still make a viable
boxer?
Granted, at this point we don’t know the details of the
script. Maybe Rocky is only boxing for charity and things
turn ugly — like the exhibition match in “Rocky III,”
when he threw Hulk Hogan out of the ring.
But I suspect your plans are grander. Rocky will go up
against a much younger fighter, take him down and use the
post-fight press conference to pitch for Social Security
reform. Because, if I’m remembering correctly, our boy
lost it all by the fifth “Rocky” and ended up in his old
Philadelphia neighborhood, broke and humiliated. He may need
government assistance to supplement his meager income as the
spit-bucket emptier at his old gym.
The constant pummelings left Rocky with brain damage and a
bad eye. Watching him take punches to the face will be like
New England Patriots fans watching stroke victim Tedy
Bruschi going helmet to helmet from his linebacker’s
position. We grimace with every head shot.
What will Rocky’s physical condition be in the sixth
movie? Will we see in him a man who’s paid the price for
having his brain sloshed around his skull by other men’s
fists? Will the inevitable training montage to inspirational
music cure the Parkinson’s-like tremors in his hands and
heal his bad eye?
No one will forget that you made Rocky a classic American
underdog hero. The 1976 movie was a rehash of B-picture
plots and archetypes that transcended their origins and
became a phenomenon. Maybe you simply struck at the perfect
time, when the country was giddy celebrating its own humble
beginnings and unlikely victories of 200 years ago. We
responded at the box office; your peers awarded you the
Oscar for Best Picture and nominated you for Best Actor.
(And you might have won, too, if your major competition,
Peter Finch from “Network,” hadn’t died. The drama
kings and queens of the Academy couldn’t resist that
storyline.)
You knew you had a good thing, and kept bringing Rocky back
until he sat in our guts like a bad meal. The Italian
Stallion became less engaging when he earned big money and
lost his crotchety trainer Mick (Burgess Meredith). You
transformed your own body, so that by “Rocky III” you
were so lean and cut you didn’t even look like a
heavyweight boxer anymore.
Here’s what I’d like to see. Rather than “Rocky VI,”
why not an A&E or a PBS special recounting the Rocky
years, with you and the principal actors sharing stories and
secrets about working together. The upcoming 30-year
anniversary of the first “Rocky” is a natural time to do
it. Gather Shire and Burt Young (Paulie), Carl Weathers
(Apollo Creed), Mr. T (Clubber Lang), even Dolph Lundgren
(scary Russian guy) onto a stage in those neat directors’
chairs; get James Lipton to emcee, and see where it takes
you.
I know the temptation is great to prolong the best thing in
your career, even the second best (according to IMDB.com
you’re in pre-production on “Rambo IV.”) Rocky has
been good to you, no doubt. Without him, you might have
spent the years as a bit player, one of those guys whose
face looks familiar but the name escapes us.
Instead, you laced up the gloves in ’76 and the rest is
movie history. Rocky Balboa has fought the good fight, and
now he deserves to rest.
