Rocky Balboa Surprisingly Rocks

I know what you're thinking and I was thinking it too. I was extremely skeptical about this movie. This movie had trouble written all over it. Sequel of an old cheesy movie that had like a billion sequels, Sylvester Stallone is playing his old character, but is now 60 years old, I never saw the originals, so I wouldn't really "get" this one, but can probably tell you the plot of the originals (Rocky struggles, but wins and gets the girl), I don't usually watch "dick flicks", and finally, Kives was recommending it (he doesn't have a good track record of taste in movies, or frankly, anything). I went to go watch it with Kives tonight on his suggestion.

I expected the biggest piece of crap I have ever seen, but it was actually good!!! I still can't believe that it didn't suck!!!

I was fully expecting zero plot, zero character development, and an extremely large amount of cheese. I was wrong on every count. The plot was actually pretty good, and was built up well. It was a little unbelievable, but at the same time, just believable enough. It made complete sense despite not having seen the previous ones. The character development was actually surprisingly good for a "dick flick". And while some of the lines could have been cheesy, it came across as genuine and actually left me with some memorable quotes:

You or nobody ain't never gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard you hit... it's about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward.

Sir, do you have a reservation?
Do I look like a freakin' Indian?

(ya, it's bad, but it's so bad it's funny)

Despite not having seen the original movies, I had seen enough clips and parodies of them to know the soundtrack, and I have to admit, I was getting into it when the key songs were playing. Running up the stairs with the Rocky theme (microphone arrays memories) playing in the background is classic. I wanted Eye of the Tiger, but it wasn't in the movie itself. I think it was playing in the credits though.

I got fully absorbed into this movie. I felt for Rocky and I was cheering him on. When I forget about everything else and I'm fully engrossed in a movie, that's when it's a good movie. It was definitely entertaining and it was worth the $8.95 (that's the full admission price in Winnipeg).

Of course, Kives and I followed it up with some ping pong in my basement for old times sake :). For the record, I kicked his ass, 3-0 in games to 5. He's totally lost his game having not played for so long.