Review of Rocky Balboa (2006) by Shawn E — 12 May 2012

A nice story as always, but at least in the previous films we could sort of buy Rocky's underdog story. Here, with Rocky fighting a current heavyweight champ while in his mid to late 50's, it's believability has been stretched a bit too far past it's limit. The film also relies a bit too much on flashbacks for my taste. Nostalgia is good, but when a quarter of the film is spent either showing old clips or paralleling old plot, it gets old.

I realize a lot of people liked this film, and I don't fault them for putting more value in it's sentimentality than I am. But personally, I feel the series would have been just fine without this final addition.