Rocky Review
Before you tell me yourself, trust me, I am aware that being alive for 23 years in the state of Pennsylvania and not watching Rocky until now is a cardinal sin. But better late than never right?? Right???
Now I want to preface this with the note that this review and the next couple following it may not be terribly detailed. I got lazy on writing reviews while my experiences were still fresh and then I got caught working 16 days in a row on 12 hour shifts, so suffice to say I had very little motivation to do anything other than sleep, call my girlfriend and hang with my cat. On the bright side, this did inspire me to start taking notes on my experiences which will probably be good for my future reviews and videos so I don't have to sounds like a complete troglodyte trying to come up with how something made me feel other than saying "it was so fun :))))".
Rocky was a really pleasant watch, I think it's healthy to experience older pieces of art even if you don't quite yet enjoy them just for the sake of the perspective they provide. Not to say that I didn't enjoy Rocky, I just wanted to make that point for the sake of saying that not everything will capture your attention immediately, especially if it's different than what you're used to. Going off of my limited experience with the Rocky franchise (literally just watching Creed II in a dorm room), I expected this film to be a really meathead movie. Like a Shonen where the protagonist rises up to impossible odds with intense training and dedication to shock the world by taking down the blatantly superior opponent. I was surprised to instead find Rocky to be much more of a tender film that what I initially expected, with the film focusing much more deeply on Rocky as a person than a fighter.
Rocky himself is presented as a bum, a promising fighter with a heart of gold, but still a bum. Choosing to run collections for a loan shark even if his heart isn't really in it. Everyone knows him but he still seems to spend a lot of his time alone. This was a welcome surprise, I expected Rocky to be a scrappy up and coming boxer, ready for a challenge and filled with a masculine bravado, when in reality he's hesitant and pessimistic about his own abilities. The scene where Rocky's coach visits his apartment to ask to train personally with him was a great example of what this doubt does to a person. Initially, Rocky shouts him out of his apartment, screaming about how he apparently wasn't worth the time until he was set to fight the world champion, only to chase his coach down on the street after he leaves. Was Rocky justified? Maybe, but the thing is if Rocky couldn't believe in himself until now, why should have anyone else before him? What I got out of Rocky is that before anyone can believe in you, you'll have to believe in yourself first. I think there's a cute depiction of the power of community in Rocky, his training is unorthodox and strange but it's all possible because of the people around him, what changed was Rocky's confidence in himself and his own belief that he's capable of something great. Even to the point that he realizes that fighting the champ and staying on his feet until the final round is an amazing feat. This speaks to a sort of anti-perfectionism, where sitting in that paralysis of wondering if you'll ever even be good enough is going to sabotage your desire to even try at all.
Also there's a scene in the movie where Rocky's old boss lends him some money for training outside of Pat's King of Steaks (the alleged inventors of the Philly cheesesteak) and it made me laugh because whenever I visit my girlfriend she will shit talk Pat's every single time without fail.