It may be foolhardy to do so, but there is plenty to dispute in Rocky – The Undisputed Collection, the new Blu-ray boxed set of all six Rocky movies. That lovable, sometimes punchy, lug from Philadelphia; the Italian Stallion; Philadelphia's Favorite Son went through a heck of a lot over the course of the movies, but the movies, as with Rocky's life, are something of a bumpy road.
The initial Rocky is a masterpiece. It won the Best Picture Oscar and put Stallone, who wrote the Oscar-nominated screenplay and insisted that he star in the movie (he was also nominated for an Oscar for the role) on the map. The tale is a pretty simple underdog story, nothing that hasn't been done before, but one which still manages to pull all the right heartstrings. Stallone stars as the titular Rocky, a down-and-out fighter from Philadelphia, a guy who has never made it and though he boxes, earns a living as the enforcer for a small-time loan shark. Rocky ends up with a "dream shot," a relatively random chance to fight the current heavyweight champion, Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers).
Through the years – and the next five films – Rocky would fight Creed twice more, Clubber Lang (Mr. T), Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren), Tommy "The Machine" Gunn (Tommy Morrison), and Mason "The Line" Dixon (Antonio Tarver), in addition to participating in several smaller bouts. Each movie carefully crafts Rocky's reasons for fighting and in each film Rocky has to convince a family member, usually his wife, Adrian (Talia Shire, Oscar-nominated for the original), that it's the right thing to do – that fighting is something that Rocky needs, or the country needs, or that just has to be done.
Outside of his opponents, the series certainly features some great supporting characters. The aforementioned Creed, who appeared in four of the films and Adrian, who was in five, are certainly among them. Also crucially important to the films, and played beautifully, are Rocky's brother-in-law, Paulie (Burt Young, Oscar-nominated for the original) and Rocky's trainer, Mickey (Burgess Meredith, again, Oscar-nominated for the original). Rocky is always at the films' center, but without the supporting characters, Rocky would never have progressed. In the better films, the characters grow with Rocky, learning about themselves and becoming better people. In the worse ones, they remain shadows of their former selves. Watching the original film, it is easy to believe that so many of the actors were nominated for awards, but if one were to only watch Rocky IV, the pictures they would get of Paulie and Adrian are not merely incomplete, they would be absurdist cartoon versions of this once three-dimensional, very human people.
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