Synopsis
A struggling Philadelphia club fighter (Sylvester Stallone) gets a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to fight for love, glory and self-respect. Featuring a legendary musical score and thrilling fight sequences, this rousing crowd-pleaser scores a knockout!
The story drives the movie, period. Sylvester Stallone wrote this screenplay with hopes (sort of demands) that he plays the lead character. Given virtually no budget, the movie went on to win three Oscars and permanently propel Stallone into stardom. In other words, no more Roger Corman films.
Stallone’s Rocky story was unique, as it told the tale of an aging boxer, who is given one last chance to make something of himself. It’s inspiring and hopeful, as Stallone pulls off his role as a lovable street goon, who only knows boxing, perfectly. What’s more intriguing about this film is that it’s less about boxing and more about his character’s will to survive; 75 to 80% of the film is dialogue and constant inner struggles to keep his head above water, and not boxing. Stallone makes sure that everyone understands almost every angle his main character contains. Though simple in description, Rocky’s own will to survive is cleverly crafted through small events. For example, when he’s hired by a mafia type guy to collect money from people he doesn’t hurt the individuals, though he’s asked to. He does show his street side through dialogue and threats, but cares for the struggling individuals in a subtle sort of way. Again, it’s simple things in this character that slowly shape who he is. When the film reaches the point where Rocky gets his chance to fight the champ (out of shear luck) his underdog demeanor is magnified by his previous struggles and heartaches in the film.
In other words, Stallone wants you to cheer hard for this guy and understand his values. You end up as excited as his hometown of Philadelphia when the man goes the distance with the champ because you see how he gets to that point in his life and understand how strong this guy is regardless of how many times he has been knocked down (metaphorically). Careful character crafting through well thoughtout storytelling makes this film work oh so nicely.
Younger audiences may not appreciate this film, but older audiences will certainly love what Stallone and director John G. Avildsen has to offer. Powerful performances mixed with powerful storytelling equal out to be an epic film on many levels, or even a classic if you will.
With that said, the Blu-ray transfer for this Stallone classic is gorgeous. While it does have some noise here and there, the clean up job that did on it was pretty good. Having send the box set of the entire collection this one (and the second film) were treated the best. Is this one any different in transfer than the box set? Not really, but if you don’t want to own any other Rocky films then this might be the best route to go. With the right lighting and simply spectacular colors (especially at the end of the film when the main event is going on) you’ll find a lot to appreciate visually on this transfer. The end fight was definitely worth the wait when you see it in HD. As for the audio you get it in 5.1 DTS-HD. I’ve seen a few classic films lately that have been transferred to Blu-ray that maintained their mono flavor, which is just awful. The punching and the music deserved the 5.1 DTS-HD mastering.
As for features, there are none. You get a very snazzy booklet (straight from the Blu-ray pages of Warner Home Video) that makes the release very nice to look at; it’s much better than those blue boxes. Inside you’ll find information about the film, nice photos and a few snippets of dialogue here and there. I’m sad there isn’t more than this.