Sylvester Stallone did not want to hand Rocky II to another director, and that refusal is the most interesting thing about the movie. United Artists was reluctant to let him take the chair after John G. Avildsen, who directed Rocky in 1976, could not return. Stallone held his ground and got the job. The sequel he delivered is a strange, uneven, occasionally great piece of work: a film that spends an hour being about nothing much and then, in its last act, remembers exactly what it is for.
Trailer, via Amazon MGM Studios.
The rematch Apollo Creed demands
Rocky II picks up the moment the first film ends. Apollo Creed, played by Carl Weathers, has defended the heavyweight title against Rocky Balboa on a split decision. Both men land in the same hospital. That night, Apollo challenges Rocky again, insisting the man who went the distance with him was a fluke. Rocky declines and retires. His doctors reveal he needs surgery for a detached retina, a condition that could leave him blind. Rocky visits a recuperating Apollo and asks whether Apollo gave his all. Apollo confirms he did.
That exchange is the seed of the whole film. Apollo’s only blemish, as the source puts it, is that split decision, and the hate mail that follows turns it into an obsession.
Hate mail and a smear campaign
What pushes Apollo back into the ring is not ambition. It is hate mail. Strangers write to claim he fixed the fight to protect his reign as champion. Weathers plays the obsession well, and the film is honest about what drives it: a champion who cannot accept that his win was close, and who will risk everything to prove it was not.
His trainer and friend Tony “Duke” Evers, played by Tony Burton, pleads with him not to do it. Duke’s argument is specific and correct. Rocky’s ability to absorb punishment is too dangerous for Apollo’s chances of defending the title a second time. Apollo demands his team do whatever it takes to goad Rocky out of retirement anyway.
Rocky marries Adrian and meets an agent
Rocky, meanwhile, enjoys his new fame. An agent sees him as an endorsement and sponsorship goldmine. The sudden money encourages him to propose to Adrian, played by Talia Shire, and she accepts. They marry in a small ceremony. Soon after, Adrian reveals she is pregnant.
This is the stretch where Rocky II sags. The film wants to show a fighter who cannot function outside the ring, and it does, but it takes its time. Rocky’s limited education and illiteracy lead him into financial problems. He makes several unsuccessful attempts to find work. The picture is clear enough: the man who could take Apollo Creed’s best punch cannot fill out a form.
Adrian, Paulie and the people around the ring
Burt Young returns as Paulie Pennino, Rocky’s best friend turned brother-in-law, and Burgess Meredith returns as Mickey Goldmill, the manager and trainer who is a former bantamweight from the 1920s and owns the local gym. Both are good. Meredith in particular gives Mickey a rasp that makes the training scenes land harder than they should.
Shire carries the heaviest load. During labor with their first son, Adrian enters a coma for a large portion of the film. Shire plays the quiet parts of that without pushing, and the film is better for it.
The cast is deep in small parts. Joe Spinell returns as Tony Gazzo, the loan shark and Rocky’s former employer. Sylvia Meals plays Mary Anne Creed. Seargeoh Stallone appears uncredited as Robert “Rocky” Balboa Jr., the newborn. Paul Micale plays Father Carmine. Frank McRae appears as a meat foreman, uncredited. Jeff Temkin is the ring announcer. Referee Lou Filippo and commentators Brent Musburger, Stu Nahan and Bill Baldwin appear as themselves. The painter LeRoy Neiman shows up uncredited in the training scenes, drawing a picture of Apollo.
Stallone directs, and the injuries show
Stallone wrote the screenplay and finished it in 1977. Development began that year. Principal photography started in 1978, mostly on location in Philadelphia, and Stallone sustained several injuries during the shoot. The film is dedicated to the late Jane Oliver, Stallone’s first agent.
That dedication matters more than it might seem. Rocky II is a movie made by people who knew the first one was a fluke of its own, and who were determined to prove they could do it again on purpose.
What works, and what stalls
The finale is the reason to watch. The climactic battle between the “Master of Disaster” and the “Italian Stallion” is brutal and unforgettable, and it earns its place in a 119-minute film. The tagline promises as much: “Once he fought for a dream. Now he’s fighting for love!” The film takes that literally.
The middle hour is the problem. Rocky II has no real antagonist for long stretches, because Apollo is off in his own story and Rocky is off in his. That is this paper’s impression, not something the film announces. The financial trouble subplot is meant to give Rocky a reason to say yes, but it never feels like a reason. It feels like a delay.
The film also has a strange relationship with its own hero’s intelligence. Rocky’s illiteracy is treated as a plot mechanism rather than a character trait. It exists to get him into money trouble and then to get him out of the way so the fight can happen.
The 1979 box office and the reviews
Rocky II opened in the United States on June 15, 1979, released by United Artists. It grossed $200.1 million worldwide and $85 million in North America. That made it the third highest-grossing film of 1979 domestically and the second highest-grossing film worldwide. Reviews were generally positive, with praise for the characterization, the finale and Stallone’s performance.
That praise is mostly fair. The characterization is better than a sequel needs to be. The finale is better than the rest of the movie. Stallone’s performance is the anchor, and the quiet scenes are where he does the most with the least.
Which parts of Rocky II actually matter
Here is what this paper makes of it. Rocky II is a sequel that understands its own premise better than it understands its own middle. The Apollo Creed material is the strongest thread in the film, and it is the thread the movie keeps dropping. A version of Rocky II that stayed with Apollo’s hate mail and Duke’s warnings would be a sharper movie than the one that spends its second act watching Rocky fail at jobs.
The Adrian coma is the film’s real gamble, and it pays off. It gives the last act a stake that the boxing cannot supply on its own, and it makes the rematch about something other than a belt. Without it, Rocky II is two men settling a score. With it, it is a man fighting for a reason.
The direction is competent rather than distinctive. Stallone got the job by refusing to let the film be made without him, and he does not embarrass himself. But Avildsen’s absence is felt, and that is a judgement, not a fact the source hands over. The first film had a texture this one lacks.
Ranked from strongest to weakest, on this paper’s reading, the film’s working parts break down like this:
- The Apollo Creed hate-mail thread, which gives the rematch a real psychological engine.
- The Adrian coma, which converts a boxing match into a personal stake.
- The climactic fight itself, which is brutal and earns its runtime.
- Burgess Meredith’s Mickey, a supporting turn that carries the training scenes.
- The endorsement-agent subplot, which sets up the marriage but never pays off.
- The job-hunting middle act, which stalls the film for roughly an hour.
What holds up best is the structure of the Apollo problem. A champion who cannot accept that his win was close, and who will risk everything to prove it was not, is a better engine than most sports sequels get. Rocky II underuses it, and still lands the punch.
The injuries Stallone took during the shoot are not visible on screen in any way that helps. What is visible is a filmmaker who knew what the ending had to be and worked backward from it, and who let the middle wander because he trusted the ending to carry him. It mostly does.
Rocky II is not the movie the first one was. It is a sequel that earns its final twenty minutes and coasts on the rest. That is a real achievement and a real limitation, and both are on the screen at once. The fight is worth the wait. The wait is longer than it needs to be.
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