The first “Rocky” brought Stallone into the limelight, while “Rocky II” solidified that he was here to stay, and “Rocky III” was the beginning of director/writer/star Sylvester Stallone really hitting his stride in Hollywood, but it is “Rocky IV” when the franchise hit its zenith. 

Stallone was about to hit what some might argue to be the peak of his career with both “Rambo: First Blood Part II” (directed by George P. Cosmatos) and the subject of today’s review “Rocky IV” (once again written, directed, and starring Sylvester Stallone, who I’m surprised didn’t do the catering too.)

It’s 1985, meaning it’s time for Coca-Cola to introduce New Coke (with a, in hindsight, very unfortunate choice for a spokesperson), a bunch of bands are killing it at Live Aid, and the U.S. and the Soviet Union are trying to one up each other for the 500th time. 

It’s the latter fact that’s important to the plot (which is a shame, as it would’ve been great to see Rocky go up against Freddy Mercury in the ring) as the Soviet Union has created what seems to be the perfect fighter, Ivan Drago (played by Dolph Lundgren) and challenges any American boxer to take him on in an exhibition match, in order to prove once and for all that communism is superior to democracy. 

Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers), being the jingoistic person he is, won’t take this slight against his country lying down and accepts the challenge by the soviet superman in the ring. Unfortunately, Apollo proves to be no match for the Russian and is (spoiler alert) killed during the bout. 

Filled with a burning urge for vengeance, Balboa challenges Drago to a fight in Russia on Christmas Day.

As teased in the “Rocky III” review, “Rocky IV” is when the franchise really goes off the rails into pure insanity and cornball entertainment. But just like with the previous film that doesn’t make it bad – in fact it’s a feature in this case because it’s more consistently crazy. It’s the type of insanity that can only be found when fueled by a mix of uber patriotism and probably an entire cartel’s worth of cocaine. 

Some of the absolute insanity includes Paulie (Burt Young) getting a robot for his birthday and Apollo coming down to the ring to fight Drago with a large song and dance number to “Living in America” being sung by none other than James Brown. 

The movie is so patriotic and so anti-communist that you’d think ol’ Ronnie Reagan himself co-wrote the film. Like how every main Russian character is cartoonishly evil and how Rocky ends the Cold War and causes the Soviet Union to collapse with just a speech. The type of patriotism that’s on more steroids than most of the cast (probably) which adds its own unique charm making it super memorable.

Speaking of memorable, there are a lot of quotable lines in the film, with most of them coming from Drago himself, the most famous one being: “If he dies. He dies.”

Which shouldn’t be a surprise as, even though he doesn’t say much, Dolph Lundgren does great portraying the imposing nature of the character as well as being a memorable larger than life villain that the Italian Stallion really has to put his all into if he wants to have a chance of beating.

The film’s soundtrack is also worth a special mention, while Bill Conte’s iconic score is unfortunately nowhere to be heard. It is replaced with ’80 power ballads galore – it’s a blast to listen to.

But that does lead into the first problem the film has: While the music is legitimately great, whenever it comes on it interrupts the plot of the film to have a music video or montage. It breaks the already quick pace in half, slowing down the movie suddenly, to then, just as suddenly, have it speed up again once it gets back to plot.

As mentioned before, the film is pure insanity and over the top plot points, which can be fun for those who enjoy that sort of storytelling. But if one really enjoyed the “melo” part in the melodrama and the character study the first two films had, then this film really isn’t for them. 

However if this is the case, there is a version that may appeal to them more: The 2021 recut made by Stallone titled “Rocky IV: Rocky vs Drago – The Ultimate Director’s Cut”, which cuts out some of the more insane moments in the film and replaces them with 38 minutes of never-before-seen footage of different takes and scenes that were cut, and is generally a more down-to-earth version of the film (well, as down to earth as it can be.)

“Rocky IV” is an unapologetically crazy time that’s sure to entertain many who watch it, but is likely to lose those who enjoyed the more relatable storytelling of I and II.