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You know, I never saw any of the Rocky films, and I figured what better way to start than with the original movie? And you'd think it would be a great film to start out with, considering it has an overall 8.0 IMDb score.
Well, it turns out you thought wrong.
The film starts out decent enough though, and I see what the director and writers were going for too. It's about rising up from the slums and making something of yourself, embracing the American idea of nobody becoming somebody by pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. I could definitely get behind that. Perhaps the first huge mistake we see though is Rocky harassing a female store clerk that he likes. Now, I don't know. Maybe it was different times back then where you could just get all stalkerish on a girl and it was saul goodman. But hey, maybe the film is going for a redemption story or something and they wanted to paint him as a total creepy loser first. If so, mission accomplished there.
You might say that this is excused because she's just shy and he's just trying to get her to open up, but we never see any signs that she's even slightly interested. Just cold silence. And it gets better. Her brother invites him over to his house to date her, saying she wants to see him. She doesn't want to see him. (Or anyone new really.) And what do we do? Kick her out of the house of course and toss the food she made in the alley! I kid you not. I guess this is done as comedic relief??? Either way, it's just so fucking cringe, I just can't. And I wouldn't make that big a deal out of cringy romantic subplots in movies normally, but this relationship covers a large chunk of the runtime. Fine, but if it is gonna cover that much runtime, then it's gonna get a lot more attention from me. And honestly, how this woman is treated is downright horrid. I could go on with another creepy as fuck scene but I think you get the picture.
Beyond that, the movie is very simplistic. Rocky gets invited to duel a heavyweight champion. He gets nervous. He trains. He trains some more. He wins (not technically, but whatever). That's... About it. And maybe it might have gotten away with it too if the execution wasn't shit, but it is. Really, IMDb? This is an 8 star film? A classic from the 70s? Give me a fucking break. Ah well... At least it introduced me to Summer Madness from Kool & The Gang, so it wasn't a total waste of time. Absolute vibing classic. Heh. Guess I should have played more GTA: Vice City.
