ROCKY The Undisputed Collection Blu-ray Set (6 films) - Reviewed by Dean Winkelspecht

—> See Link to our Blu-ray Review (below)

Never give up and never stop believing.

A Philadelphia fighter who never made the big time. He showed he could take on a challenge... and won something bigger than a championship bout. Meet the "Italian Stallion" — a small-time guy with big-time guts who yearns to be a hero... just once!

"Writer-star Sylvester Stallone's parable of redemption remains not only the sports-film paragon but one of the most successful low-budget movies ever." —(Entertainment Weekly)

"Striking a blow for underdogs with more heart than smarts, and bringing apple-pie values and feel-good endings back into vogue." —(Premiere)

ROCKY: The Undisputed Collection Blu-ray Set
— Six-Film Set + Bonus Anthology disc »
(Now available - released November 3)

The Greatest Underdog Story of our time...

On November 3, MGM Home Entertainment proudly released ROCKY The Undisputed Collection Blu-ray Box Set, comprising all six films in the "Rocky" series, available for $99.99 SRP.

The set is presented on seven discs, which includes a "Rocky Anthology" documentary bonus disc, and other bonus features (see below).

Rocky is a 1976 film written by and starring Sylvester Stallone and directed by John G. Avildsen. It tells the rags-to-riches American Dream story of Rocky Balboa, an uneducated but good-hearted debt collector for a loan shark in Philadelphia. Balboa is also a club fighter who gets a shot at the world heavyweight championship when the scheduled contender breaks his hand. Also starring in Rocky are Talia Shire as Adrian, Burt Young as Adrian's brother Paulie, Burgess Meredith as Rocky's trainer Mickey Goldmill, and Carl Weathers as the champion, Apollo Creed.

The film, made for only $1.1 million, and shot relatively fast in 28 days, was a sleeper hit; it made over US$117.2 million, and won three Oscars, including Best Picture. The film received many positive reviews and turned Stallone into a major star. It spawned five sequels: Rocky II, III, IV, V and Rocky Balboa.

Sylvester Stallone was inspired to create the film by the famous fight between Muhammad Ali and Chuck Wepner. Wepner had been TKO'd in the 15th round by Ali, but nobody ever expected him to last as long as he did. Wepner recalls in a January 2000 interview, "Sly (Stallone) called me about two weeks after the Ali fight and told me he was gonna make the movie."

The Directors Guild of America awarded Rocky its annual award for best film of the year in 1976, and in 2006, Sylvester Stallone's original screenplay for Rocky was selected for the Writers Guild of America Award as the 78th best screenplay of all time.

Rocky's soundtrack was composed by Bill Conti. The main theme song, "Gonna Fly Now," made it to number one on the Billboard Magazines Hot 100 list for one week (from July 2 to July 8, 1977) and the American Film Institute placed it 58th on its AFI's 100 Years... 100 Songs.

To date Rocky has generated five sequels. The first, Rocky II (1979) sees Rocky reluctantly called back for a rematch with Apollo Creed. Rocky II reunited the entire cast of the original Rocky, and was just as successful, grossing $200 million worldwide.

A new character appears in 1982's Rocky III, Clubber Lang (played by Mr. T), an outspoken young fighter insisting on a fight with Rocky. Rocky loses this bout, with Mickey suffering a fatal heart attack after the fight (he dies thinking Rocky won, Rocky doesn't have the heart to tell him otherwise). Rocky accepts an offer from his rival-turned-friend Apollo Creed for help in regaining the title.

Rocky IV (1985) introduces Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren), a strong Soviet fighter who is convinced he can defeat any American fighter. A retired Apollo takes up the challenge and is killed in the ring by Drago. After Apollo's death, Rocky decides to fight against Drago, despite his wife Adrian urging him not to, and travels to the Soviet Union to train for the fight. Rocky defeats Drago but has to give up his official heavyweight title as the boxing commission did not sanction the fight.

Released in 1990, Rocky V was a departure from the rest of the series, as Rocky no longer fights professionally, due to brain injuries, but instead trains younger fighters, including Tommy Gunn (played by real life boxer Tommy Morrison). It becomes apparent that Gunn is merely using Rocky's fame for his own ends, and the film ends with Rocky defeating Gunn in a fight in the street. The movie also is the first to introduce Rocky's son, Robert, as a major character.

The final addition to the "Rocky" series, Rocky Balboa, released in 2006, has the 60 year old Rocky fighting against a real-life boxer again, in this case former light heavyweight champion Antonio Tarver playing Mason "The Line" Dixon. Rocky Balboa was the most critically well received "Rocky" film of the entire series since the original, 30 years earlier.

Details + BONUS FEATURES include:
Disc 1: Rocky Blu-ray
Disc 2: Rocky II Blu-ray
Disc 3: Rocky III Blu-ray
Disc 4: Rocky IV Blu-ray
Disc 5: Rocky V Blu-ray
Disc 6: Rocky Balboa Blu-ray
Disc 7: Rocky Anthology (bonus disc)
Rocky Featurettes etc:
• Three Rounds with Legendary Trainer Lou Duva
• Interview with a Legend - Bert Sugar: Author/Commentator and Historian
• The Opponents
• In the Ring: 3-Part Making-of Documentary
• Steadicam: Then and Now with Garrett Brown
• Make Up! The Art and Form with Michael Westmore
• Staccato: A Composer's Notebook with Bill Conti
• The Ring of Truth
• Behind the Scenes with John Avildsen
• Tribute to Burgess Meredith
• Tribute to James Crabe
• Feeling Strong Now! Game
• Video Commentary with Sylvester Stallone
• Sylvester Stallone on Dinah! (1976)
• Stallone Meets Rocky
• Rocky Anthology Trailers to all six films
• Rocky TV Spots: Introducing Sylvester Stallone • Critical Acclaim #1 Critical Acclaim #2

ROCKY — Explore further:
—> Blu-ray Review by Dean Winkelspecht »
EXCERPT: Sylvester Stallone made Rocky Balboa a sports icon and the New York City native is considered a son of Philadelphia after his 1976 masterpiece "Rocky." The film won three Academy Awards on ten nominations, bringing home Best Film Editing, Best Director and Best Picture. The film was a huge boost to Sly Stallone's career and it made perfect sense when Stallone penned the successful sequel "Rocky II" and served as the film's director. Hollywood isn't one to put an end to a good thing and Stallone again wrote and directed the decent sequel "Rocky III." The series would have been a fitting trilogy, but money speaks and the Cold War came into focus with the uneven and cheesy "Rocky IV." If the decision to make a fourth film was bad enough, Stallone teamed up with the director from the first film and the poorly received and uninspired "Rocky V" seemed to sink the franchise. Surprisingly, a sixty year old Stallone revisited his franchise with the entertaining and redeeming sixth film "Rocky Balboa."

The series is now available in high definition Blu-ray and while the series has had its up and downs, the character of Rocky Balboa is one of the more endearing underdog success stories in Hollywood history. Rocky is part of the American backstory and while he is a fictional boxer, the "Italian Stallion" has become part of boxing history as well. Stallone has written each entry in the film series and each successive chapter has remained faithful to the previous story. "Rocky" is one of the more important franchises in the MGM vaults and it makes good business sense to release the films as one coherent collection, as long as pricing would be close to the cost of purchasing the series' three better films separately. The suggested retail price is roughly $100 dollars, but the street price is far cheaper.

The first film earned the Best Picture Oscar and will always be remembered as one of the greatest boxing films and is a classic film. Stallone had toiled around for a few years before, but this movie launched him to superstardom. The original four sequels are a mixed bag and the second film has always felt nicely paired with the original as it almost feels like one long story. I felt for the longest time that Stallone should have stopped after the very good "Rocky II" and never proceeded with "Rocky III" thru "Rocky V." The third movie wasn't a bad film, but the underdog story started to feel rehashed during the third movie. It is a good sequel, but can't stand up against the first two entries in the series. The fourth film had Stallone trying to capitalize on the Reagan era attempts at ending the Cold War and always felt out of place. It had a nice soundtrack, but Balboa was more of a caricature than an Italian underdog story. The final film was nothing more than an attempt to make a few more dollars after the commercially successful fourth film from the Balboa name. It is not a very good film at all.

It may have seemed like a joke at first, but Stallone successfully revisited both his Rocky Balboa and John Rambo characters in the second half of the 2000 decade. "Rocky Balboa" was tastefully done and finally brought a meaningful closure to the character of Rocky. Stallone decided it was time for Rocky to lose in the ring and say goodbye in an honorable way. I admit that I was first very skeptical of this sixth "Rocky" film, but after watching it, "Rocky Balboa" became my second favorite entry in the series. It was the most fitting sequel of the bunch and paid tribute to the memories of those that did not take part in the film. The film not only brought Balboa back to the spotlight, but helped Stallone regain some of his lost status as an actor after a long string of duds that began when Rocky and Rambo started to fade.

These films were all written by Stallone. Rocky Balboa is his character and the role was tailor written by himself to suit his own strengths. Over his career, Stallone has not been taken seriously as an actor due to his typecasting as a muscle-bound action star. He has been in enough roles where he was not perfectly suited and some ridicule is deserved. However, nobody else could have done justice to the Italian Stallion and a lot of credit needs to be given to Stallone for both his writing and acting through the series. He was the director for a number of the films and none of the films were terribly directed. The "Rocky" series is signature Stallone and he really is great as the slow speaking, big hearted underdog.

"Rocky: The Undisputed Collection" on Blu-ray is disputable in its visual appearance. As the films become more recent, the films begin to look good. However, the thirty-four year old "Rocky" barely looks better than the DVD release. The 1.85:1 film looks dated and muddy. Detail on a few scenes are quite good, but "Rocky" is in desperate need of a full blown restoration to bring the print up to the modern age. The gritty story is aided to some extent by the visuals, but I hardly felt I was watching something on Blu-ray as I enjoyed this film. Each film improved just a bit over the previous entry until the two year old "Rocky Balboa" showed how good a properly mastered film can look in high definition. Watching scenes between the first and sixth film show the strong disparity between the transfers and betrays the younger Stallone in visuals.

There are some good features included and the Blu-ray exclusive trivia game is at least something extra for those that may decide the marginal upgrade over the DVD does warrant a purchase. For the most part, I do enjoy these films, but I have to admit that I was hoping for a little bit more with this disputable box set.

(Click thru the Link above for the full review, including detailed breakdown of the bonus features)

—> Visit the ROCKY BALBOA Official Site »
(from MGM Home Entertainment)

—> View the ROCKY BALBOA Trailer (w/HD) »
(from Apple.com Trailers)

"A fine, scuffed, sweaty slab of romantic pulp sentimentalism." —Damien Love (Uncut)

Film Synopsis:
Never give up and never stop believing.
The entire story of Rocky Balboa, one of the greatest cinematic heroes of all time.

Rocky
Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) is a Philadelphia club fighter who seems to be going nowhere. But when a stroke of fate puts him in the ring with the World Heavyweight Champion, Rocky knows that it's his one shot at the big time - a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go the distance and come out a winner!

Rocky II
It's the rematch of the century as Rocky Balboa takes on Apollo Creed in this powerful follow-up to one of the most acclaimed movies in film history.

After club fighter Rocky Balboa goes the distance with the world heavyweight champion, boxing fans clamor for a rematch. But Rocky, having sustained massive injuries in the bout, announces his retirement. Though he tries to make a new start for himself, Rocky realizes that he can't escape his true calling. The ring beckons once more, and the "Italian Stallion" must prepare for the fight of his life.

Rocky III
Rocky battles his most powerful adversary yet-the ferocious Clubber Lang - in this hard-hitting actioner that comes out swinging with adventure, humor and emotionally charged human drama. For what may be the most exciting and fast-paced film in the series, Sylvester Stallone writes, directs and stars with explosive passion and intensity.

As Rocky Balboa fights his way into the hearts of millions, life couldn't be better. He scores ten consecutive wins, lands lucrative endorsement contracts, and becomes famous throughout the world. But when Clubber Lang KOs Rocky in a humiliating defeat, it becomes apparent that the "Italian Stallion" has lost his edge. Considering hanging up his gloves, Rocky receives encouragement from an unlikely ally: his old nemesis, Apollo Creed. With Creed's help, Rocky strives to regain the "eye of the tiger" before confronting Lang in a grueling rematch for the world heavyweight championship.

Rocky IV
Rocky Balboa proudly holds the world heavyweight boxing championship, but a new challenger has stepped forward: Drago (Dolph Lundgren), a six-foot-four, 261-pound fighter who has the backing of the Soviet Union. This time, Rocky's training regimen takes him to icy Siberia, where he prepares for a globally televised match in the heart of Moscow. But nothing can truly prepare him for what he's about to face - a powerfully charged fight to the finish, in which he must defend not only himself, but also the honor of his country!

Rocky V
Upon returning home from his latest triumph, Rocky learns that all of his money has been lost by an unscrupulous financial advisor. To make matters worse, his fight related injuries force his retirement from the ring. So, Rocky, his wife Adrian and his son Rocky, Jr. move to their old low-rent neighborhood in South Philadelphia. There, the fighter must resolve the deep-rooted resentment held by his son, a bitterness that grows when Rocky trains Tommy Gunn, a young boxer who soon rises to national prominence. When Tommy turns against his mentor and publicity taunts him, Rocky knows he must fight once more.

Rocky Balboa
When he loses a highly publicized virtual boxing match to ex-champ Rocky Balboa, reigning heavyweight title holder Mason Dixon retaliates by challenging the Italian Stallion to a nationally televised, 10-round exhibition bout. To the surprise of his son and friends, Rocky agrees to come out of retirement and face an opponent who's faster, stronger and thirty years his junior. With the odds stacked firmly against him, Rocky takes on Dixon in what will become the greatest fight in boxing history, a hard-hitting, action-packed battle of the ages!