I’ve never watched a Rocky film in my entire life, so I figured I’d give them a try. They were all good to not so good, but luckily none of them were down and out terrible. Even he worse one (3? yes, the third one was the worst) wasn’t a bad movie, just not the best Rocky film.

Rocky
Just a down on his luck bum trying to make something of his life, all while trying to get the attention of a mortally shy woman who works at the local pet store. Great story about going the distance and making the best of what life gives you.

Rocky II
That same down on his luck bum did what happens when you give a poor guy a lot of money, he went out and spent it all and got in a bad spot. Combine that with Apollo’s bruised ego and you get an amazing rematch that ends the way you would expect it to.

Rocky III
The weakest of the first three movies, this one has Mr T in it as a completely over the top caricature of some Kimbo Slice prototype. All he wants to do is kill Rocky in the ring and Rocky has to defend himself all while things are starting to fall apart around him in his personal life.

Rocky IV
TRAINING MONTAGE! Feels like half this film is Rocky and Drago(?) getting ready for their fight. The Russians using high tech and Rocky using a traditional log cabin / farm house. Sadly, this is the least believable of the four movies so far, and really points out that (in this movie at least) Rocky isn’t a great boxer, but he can take a ton of punishment. Additionally, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to believe that the Russian crowd would suddenly change their allegiance to Rocky when he started to be able to land some hits. Highlight of the film was the entrance of Apollo Creed to his exhibition fight against the Cold War superhuman.

Rocky V
Rocky retires then gets a pet project who then goes on to betray him and joins the dark side. It ends with a shitty assed street brawl that seems to forget the entire reason that Rocky’s retired. Also, I just realized, back in Rocky 2 or 3, they mention that he’s at rick of loosing his eye sight in one of his eyes from being beat up so often. Guess they’ve forgotten that by this movie, cause he has brain damage, but not the kind that actually hurts you, just the kind you have when you can’t get punched any more.

Which he does, repeatedly. Ugh.

Rocky Balboa
Going back to the idea that Rocky’s just a bum that doesn’t have much of a chance (brought to you by ESPN). The current heavy weight is watching ESPN, when ESPN mentions that ESPN has an ESPN computer that does hypothetical matches between two time separated heavy weight champions, all while you watch ESPN. Rocky hears about this too and wants to prove he’s not completely washed up.

All brought to you by ESPN.

Creed
The illegitimate child of Apollo Creed keeps getting in fights, so he becomes a boxer. His mother is against this idea, but the kid wants to fights, so he seeks out the best boxer he knows of and gets Rocky to train him. Rocky isn’t he has anything left to offer the world and everything that he loved in the world has pretty much left him by this point. The Rocky movies have all been able to pull the heart strings, but holy hell this one really did a great job at it.

Conclusions?
Sylvester Stallone is one hell of an actor when he’s not playing some superman/punisher super hero. From the very first movie, he really gave a great performance as a guy that’s missed his chance and is given one more try at greatness. It’s a formula that they used for SEVEN movies, and not once did it feel like there was any pandering or anyone giving less than 100%. Sure, there were some serious time period tropes going on, but they never dipped into Ninja Raps. At worst, there were some Mullets and broken down cities.