Rocky IV
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| Rocky IV | |
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 Theatrical Release Poster |
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| Directed by | Sylvester Stallone |
| Produced by | Robert Chartoff Irwin Winkler |
| Written by | Sylvester Stallone |
| Starring | Sylvester Stallone Talia Shire Burt Young Carl Weathers Tony Burton Brigitte Nielsen Dolph Lundgren |
| Music by | Vince DiCola |
| Cinematography | Bill Butler |
| Editing by | John W. Wheeler Don Zimmerman |
| Distributed by |  MGM/UA Entertainment Co. United International Pictures (rest of world) |
| Release date(s) | November 27, 1985 |
| Running time | 87 min |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English Russian |
| Budget | $31,000,500 |
| Preceded by | Rocky III |
| Followed by | Rocky V |
| IMDb profile | |
Rocky IV is a 1985 boxing film, the fourth and most financially successful movie of the Rocky franchise.[1] Rocky Balboa (played again by Sylvester Stallone), plans to retire from boxing after regaining his title from Clubber Lang in Rocky III. An unknown amateur boxer from the Soviet Union, Ivan Drago (played by Dolph Lundgren), however, makes a bid to enter the US boxing ranks. After an exhibition match goes horribly wrong, Rocky must step in and challenge the Russian boxer himself to avenge his friend.
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[edit] Plot
The story opens to Eye of the Tiger during the climax of Rocky Balboa's rematch against Clubber Lang, where Rocky defeated Lang with a KO to regain his title. The picture then fades and we see Apollo Creed presenting his favor to Rocky shortly after the Lang fight for helping him train, a friendly sparring match with him for fun, just as their punches connect the camera then fades once again. Rocky returns to his home to celebrate Paulie's birthday and shows evidence of a punch from Creed. Apollo also has given him a hat. It's also Rocky and Adrian Balboa's (almost) 9 year wedding anniversary.
Meanwhile, Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren), a highly intimidating 261 pound Soviet boxer, arrives in America with his wife Ludmilla, a gold medalist swimmer, his manager, Nicolai Koloff, and a team of trainers headed by Igor Rimsky to challenge the best American fighters. Koloff takes great pride in showing off the giant's gym to the American press. The training room is spotless and antiseptic, looking more like a laboratory than a place for athletes to get in shape. Koloff goes on at great length at how all of this aids in improving their man's performance, while Drago, hooked to electrodes and computers, waits for an order to be given. When asked what the result of all this is, Koloff replies, "Whatever he hits, he destroys."
Seeing Drago on TV, Apollo Creed, motivated by patriotism and a desire to prove himself after five years of retirement, quickly jumps at the chance to step back into the ring in an exhibition bout against Drago. Despite apprehension from Rocky, who eventually agrees to help train him, Apollo sets the match between himself and Drago in Las Vegas.
With Rocky in his corner, Apollo flamboyantly makes his way to the ring with an even bigger show than when he first fought Rocky, which includes fireworks, James Brown performing "Living in America," and a patriotic theme, including a crowd implacably hostile to the visiting Soviet boxer. Apollo starts the fight in his trademark manner, dancing around the ring and flicking jabs at Drago. Apollo's punches, however, have no effect on the giant Russian, and Drago throws a crippling right hand that sends Apollo reeling. Drago remorselessly batters Apollo with a series of devastating punches, leaving him bloodied and battered at the end of the round. Rocky pleads with him to quit the fight, but Apollo refuses to give up, despite the punishment he's taken. The match ends in tragedy in the second round as Drago brutally smashes the very life out of Creed. Duke begs Rocky to throw in the towel, but Creed refuses to let him, diving rashly back into combat. Drago starts launching blow after blow, and following one final hard punch, Creed drops lifelessly to the canvas.
After Apollo's funeral, feeling wracked with grief over not stopping the fight, and incensed by Drago's cold indifference to Apollo, ("If he dies, he dies.") Rocky decides he must avenge Apollo's death and sets a match with the Russian, for Christmas Day, in Moscow, but neither Rocky's world heavyweight title is on the line nor is there any purse, for the boxing commission refused to sanction the fight.
Finally, Balboa decides to get away from everything by training in Russia. Adrian tries to talk Rocky out of it, fearing for his life, but Rocky is undeterred, realizing that Apollo was right, that fighters are a breed apart and there are certain things they have to do. After saying goodbye to his son, Robert, Rocky flies with Duke and Paulie to a remote and rustic part of the Soviet Union to train.
Serious training begins in earnest for the two warriors, although their methods differ wildly. Drago, ever attached to electrodes and constantly monitored by computers, works out with ultra hi-tech equipment. Like a machine responding to the flick of a switch, he snaps out punches at blinding speed whenever ordered, coupled with regular injections of what are implied to be anabolic steroids.
Rocky, on the other hand, uses only whatever material is available. He climbs rope, does pull-ups on wooden beams, jogs past Russian peasants, chops wood, runs up snowy embankments, lifts huge rocks, and struggles mightily with a rock-filled sled, dragging it up the side of a mountain. KGB agents also follow Rocky's movements wherever he goes. He is almost ready, but he's missing one thing. When Adrian shows up unexpectedly, to support him emotionally, providing more reason to succeed, Rocky begins to train harder than ever before. His heart is restored, and he is once again at his physical and emotional best.
After intense preparation for both fighters, the two men finally meet in the ring. Rocky once more dons Apollo's stars and stripes shorts as he did against Clubber Lang. The match is set in Moscow, before the Politburo, and is broadcast across the globe. Much like Apollo did in the previous fight, the Soviets introduce Drago with an elaborate, patriotic ceremony that puts the attending audience squarely on the side of Drago, leaving Rocky to be fiercely booed, much like the American crowd cheered Creed and booed Drago in Las Vegas.
After the ring introductions, an impassive Drago tells Rocky, "I must break you." After a pulverising first round, with Drago easily winning, Rocky comes back toward the end of the second and lands a shot that cuts Drago just below his eye. With Drago's confidence shaken by the injury and Rocky's apparently limitless endurance and resilience, this is a turning point as Rocky and Duke see that Drago is not superhuman as he appears, conversely while Drago describes Rocky as non-human and a "piece of iron."
The fight degenerates into a brutal battle of stamina and will across all fifteen rounds. Towards the end, the Soviet crowd has been won over by Rocky's determination and endurance, and have begun chanting his name. Koloff, angered by the crowd's change in mood and fearful of retribution from the Soviet premier, gets up from the premier's box and goes to Drago's corner to berate his performance. Drago clutches Koloff by the throat, lifts him off the ground, and tosses him aside, saying "I fight to win ... for me ... FOR ME ....!!" (the last part directed at the premier) The bell rings for the last time and Rocky, all but dead on his feet, takes one crushing blow after another from Drago. The crowd starts chanting, "Rocky, Rocky..." and suddenly, Balboa comes alive and smashes away at the Soviet, eventually knocking him down and out of the ring as Drago's endurance finally runs out.
Following his victory, Rocky gives an impassioned speech to the crowd, acknowledging their initial and mutual disdain for each other, and how they've come to respect and admire each other during the fight. Saying that the brutal battle between him and Drago in the ring was better than war between their two countries, he brings the crowd, including the Politburo, to its feet in applause, by claiming that "if I can change... and you can change... everybody can change!"
[edit] Production
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Wyoming doubled for the frozen expanse of the Soviet Union. The small farm where Rocky lived and trained was located in Jackson Hole, and the Grand Teton National Park was used for filming many of the outdoor sequences in Russia. The PNE Forum at Hastings Park in Vancouver, British Columbia, served as the location of Rocky's Soviet bout. The site would later house production of another U.S.-Soviet sports film, Miracle.
Sylvester Stallone has stated that the punching between him and Dolph Lundgren in the first portion of the fight is completely authentic. One particularly forceful punch to Stallone's chest slammed his heart against his breastbone, causing the heart to swell and his breathing to become labored. Stallone, suffering from labored breathing and a blood pressure over 200, was flown from the set in Canada to St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica and was kept in intensive care for eight days.[2]
Additionally, Stallone claims that Lundgren nearly forced Carl Weathers to quit in the middle of filming the Apollo versus Drago exhibition fight. Lundgren tossed Weathers into the corner of the boxing ring, prompting Weathers to leave the ring and announce that he was quitting and calling his agent.[3]
[edit] Music
The soundtrack for the movie included "Living in America" by James Brown; the film's music was composed by Vince DiCola, and also included songs by John Cafferty and The Beaver Brown Band, Survivor, Kenny Loggins, and Robert Tepper. Rocky IV is the only film in the series not to feature Bill Conti. Go West wrote "One Way Street" for the movie by request of Sylvester Stallone.
[edit] U.S. Box Office
When compared to the other Rocky installments, Rocky IV is the most successful in terms of non-adjusted box office gross.[4]
- Rocky: US $117.3 million
- Rocky II: US $85 million
- Rocky III: US $125 million
- Rocky IV: US $127.8 million
- Rocky V: US $40.9 million
- Rocky Balboa: US $70.3 million
These figures only reflect movie theater ticket sales in the United States. The most profitable of the films by far was the original Rocky, which only spent a production budget of US$950 thousand dollars.
[edit] Worldwide reception
Rocky IV made US$175 million outside of the U.S. grossing an overall US$300 million worldwide, the most out of any Rocky film. Considered a milestone in the capabilites of action cinema, Rocky IV is the most successful sports film of all time in terms of Box Office Adjusted for Inflation.
[edit] Trivia
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Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones. |
- The film was the subject of a landmark case in copyright law, Anderson v. Stallone. The court held that when an author appropriates characters from another author's copyrighted works (in this case, the earlier Rocky films), he has no copyright interest in any part of the new work, even the original parts (meaning Stallone won the case).
- The Soviet premier in the sky box during the Rocky-Drago match strongly resembles the then real-life Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
- Sportscaster Stu Nahan makes his fourth appearance in the series as commentator for the Apollo/Drago fight. Warner Wolf replaces Bill Baldwin (who had died in 1982) as co-commentator.
- Apollo Creed's wife Mary Anne (Sylvia Meals) made her second of two appearances in the series, the first being in Rocky II.
- It is the only movie of the series not to begin with the moving "Rocky" logo and not to feature a new score by Bill Conti.
- Stallone's then-wife, Brigitte Nielsen, appeared as Drago's wife, Ludmilla.
- The addition of a lengthy flashback to Rocky's previous films during the famous "car drive" sequence marks the only time in the franchise that the movie has two montages as opposed to just the lengthy training sequences.
- This is the only Rocky film that does not feature "Gonna Fly Now" as the training montage music. But, the theme is integrated in the last seconds of the training montage, as Rocky climbs to the peak of the mountain before he yells "DRAGO!".
- This is the only Rocky film where the main fight takes place in another country (USSR).
- Vince DiCola replaced Bill Conti as the film's composer. Bill Conti would return for Rocky V and Rocky Balboa.
- The car Rocky owns is a black Lamborghini Jalpa. He is seen driving and polishing it.
- The pressures of Drago's punches, 2250, are significantly higher than those of real-life heavyweight fighters. A 2250 psi blow is stronger than the strike of a large bear.
- The Russian translator at the end mistranslates most of Rocky's speech. Whether this was done intentionally is unknown.
- There is no actual Russian surname Drago (there are some beginning with this sequence as Dragomirov, Dragomiretsky or Dragoy), and surnames Kolov and Rimsky (not to be confused with Rimsky-Korsakov) do indeed exist but are rarely attested.
[edit] References
- ^ Rocky Movies. Box Office Mojo. Box Office Mojo, LLC.. Archived from the original on 2007-06-07. Retrieved on 2007-09-17.
- ^ Stallone Interview With Ain't It Cool News. AICN. Retrieved on 2007-01-25.
- ^ Stallone Interview With Ain't It Cool News. AICN. Retrieved on 2007-01-25.
- ^ Box Office gross. BoxOfficeMojo.com. Retrieved on 2007-01-01.
[edit] External links
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