Diagonaldi Very well executed

Sarentrol Masterful Cinema

Inmechon The movie's only flaw is also a virtue: It's jammed with characters, stories, warmth and laughs.

Tayloriona Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

2karl- Rocky struggles in family life after his bout with Apollo Creed,while the embarrassed champ insistently goads him to accept a challenge for a rematch. this film is good but not as good as the first. I gave this one 8 out of 10 , this film is 1hr59 mins directed written and stareSylvester Stallone They've come a long way together...a boxer and a dreamer. But there is still one fight left. this is a classic fight film showinng how rocky wants to go back to noraml but has to make end meat to get by. this film is more fun as we get to know the carracters more. As we find out rocky has no eduation due to his as he tries his hand at comericals. Rocky Balboa is enjoying life. He has a lovely wife, Adrian, had a successful fight with Apollo Creed and is able to enjoy the moneyhe earned from the fight and a new endorsement deal. Unfortunately, Rocky becomes embarrassed when failing to complete an advert and ends up working in a meat packing company. He believes that he will no longer have a career as a boxer.So Rocky settles down, marries Adrian and a child comes along as well to add to the borad However soon his ability to not read well costs him his job making commercials and Rocky struggles to find another job. Elsewhere Apollo Creed is furious that so many people are criticizing him for going 15 rounds with a guy who came off that street. So Apollo wants a rematch. Rocky decides that he must fight again, which upsets Adrian due to the health risks he may face. But with adrian in hospital rocky put his life on hold his carer on hold Apollo Creed is shown more and his character is expanded the most and you get to see what he is like more. Carl Weathers does a great job with Creed in this episode and really plays the upset athlete at the media well. Paulie takes a back seat in this film for the most part but Adrian is very significant in this film as she is the main reason why Rocky is so reluctant to get back in the ring.The training that Rocky does in this film is epic. Love the training that he goes through in this film,slamming metal, chasing chickens, and hopping around with lumber on his shoulders.Rocky really works hard training in this film, my personal favorite of his films in how he trains.. The "Gonna Fly Now" song is not the same as it is in the first film. It is not sung by the same people who sang it is the first film so it is not nearly as good. However this song is only used when Rocky is running, not when he is doing his other training. They used the "Going the Distance" gets you pummped up. And ready for the actionA great sequel that is funny, further expands the story and characters, and has some really great and memorable moments. A must see and easily the second best film of the series.

ss-32859 A white guy loses out to a black guy, basically because the black guy has worked hard all his life to master a skill and the white guy has only really been working at it intermittently. Not content with his victory though, the black guy wants to beat him again. Because one victory isn't enough. He wants another one.The white guy isn't really up for it though. He'd rather take the safer route. But after being rejected by the entertainment industry and being victimized by organized labor, he finds he has no choice but to fight the black guy .The black guy is infuriated by how close the white guy came to beating him the first. It's all he can think about. He can't stand the thought that a white guy might be tougher than him. He's so consumed by it, in fact, that he finds himself compelled to play by the white guys rules. Victory is easily within his grasp. All he has to do is be strategic. But the black dude chooses not to be strategic. He decides that even though there are rules to the game they're playing, if he can't beat the white guy in a contest of sheer will, he deserves to lose.Which he does. And instantly, all the animosity the black guy felt for the white guy melts away. He knows his place now. It's below the white guy. So the source of his anxiety is gone.Do I have all that right?

mmallon4 Rocky II picks right off where the first movie ended and with the characters are already established, we can get right into the story. Stallone writes and directs this time, and who knows his own creation better than him?Rocky II has a much higher budget than the first film and thus doesn't have the guerrilla film making tactics of the first so while is loses something in that regard it's still no less a beauty of a film. They can even afford to have a huge crowd of kids following him during the training montage and possibly the cheesiest moment in any Rocky movie. We now get two montages instead of one and the series obsession with them would grow from here. The final fight benefits the most from the higher budget. We actually get to see a large crowd of spectators instead of relying on stock footage and camera angels disguising the lack of extras; while the use of slow motion captures the pain and barbaric nature of fighting in glorious detail. When Rocky and Apollo both fall to the ground at the end of the fight, the suspense is crazy! The final shot of Rocky's beat up face as he slurs in classic Stallone fashion is so barbaric; a perfect shot to end the movie on.In Rocky II we get to see what Rocky does now that he has lots of money for the first time in his life and you really get a sense of the character's new found happiness. However he becomes blinded by this happiness and it goes to his head such as when he buys a house without even checking the upstairs. Rocky struggles with his new found fame and can't even film a simple commercial. Just like how the public turn their back on Rocky, the public turned their back on Stallone after his two follow up films to Rocky bombed; Paradise Alley and F.I.S.T. Like how Stallone had to do a sequel to Rocky in order to get by, Rocky has to fight Apollo again to get by and prove that he is not a fluke or a one hit wonder. Apollo's trainer Duke also has a bigger role here and would continue to be more prevalent in Rocky III and IV; I love this guy and his intense words of inspiration.Rocky II is easily the funniest movie in the series, from his poor driving skills to his mispronunciation of words when trying to film a commercial ("Smeel mainly") but my favourite moment is when he tries to a catch a chicken as part of his training ("I feel like a Kentucky Fired Idiot"). I also find it funny the scene in which Apollo is being consumed by hate mail telling him to kill himself; it's a good thing for him the web doesn't yet exist. In terms of more twisted humour, Rocky takes Adrian to the zoo and even proposes to her there, because you know, retards like the zoo.Rocky II was the first film in the series to use synthesizers in its score and the music feels very late 70's and at times disco inspired (listen to the vocal version of All of My Life, its beautiful). Bill Conti's 'Redemption' is by far the best piece of original music in the movie; it makes me want to climb a mountain. Just a side note: In regards to the Rocky DVDs, only the first movie gets the special edition treatment and the rest are just bare bones releases. I know the first is considered the best but that doesn't mean there's no merit to the sequels that they're just tossed aside on the home video releases. Rocky II offers everything I could ask for in a sequel, a movie which stays true to the original but offers new elements along the way. It advances the story and adds an extra layer of depth to already complex characters. In 1979 the New Hollywood movement was coming to an end and the age of the blockbuster had begun. In 1976 Rocky lost the final fight but keeping with the new found optimism in Hollywood movies, in 1979 Rocky wins the fight (although timeline wise its late 1976).

luke-a-mcgowan How this mighty character fell. The best part of Rocky II is the opening few minutes, which is just the final scene of Rocky. After that it takes a noticeable step downhill. Whilst Stallone is still a talented writer and actor, he seems distracted by the additional task of directing, which he is far less capable of and it impacts his work negatively. I didn't care much for Creed's sudden mood swing between the end of Rocky to the start of Rocky 2, which chronologically happens in about 20 minutes but has Creed completely change tack. Now he wants a rematch more than anything in the world. Rocky turns him down at the advice of his doctors and Adrian, who point out that a beating like he had in the first Rocky could make him go blind. Instead, Rocky proposes to Adrian (in one of the cutest scenes outside the original Rocky) and the two of them start setting up their life together. These early scenes do great justice to the Rocky-Adrian relationship I so loved in the original, and Stallone as a director is able to understand them because he created them with his writing and acting. Everything from his nervous proposal to his saying "thanks" do Adrian's "I do" is pure Rocky-Adrian delight. Whilst trying to embark on a commercial career, you can still tell that Rocky values Adrian's opinion more than anyone else's and that makes their relationship so honest and believable.Rocky runs into financial woes when he can't hold a job and turns out to be terrible with money. This was a nice plot point because too often boxing movies end with the triumph and we are left to assume so much afterwards. It also does much to push his rematch with Creed, which needed a legitimate reason on Rocky's end. During the film's best scene, when a tearful Rocky pleads Micky to let him be part of the one thing he understands, we as an audience have come full circle and are ready for Rocky to get back in the ring. However, clever writing and great work from Stallone and Meredith help us realise the gravity of Rocky's health. It's solid work.Stallone retains much of what I loved about Rocky - his low-self esteem, his disarmingly pleasant manner (his ignorance of trash talk in the press interview with Creed is almost Forrest Gump levels of innocence, but not jarring) and his thug-with-a-heart-of-gold demeanour. Talia Shire gets less to do with Adrian, because she goes through each of her plot points jerkily as Stallone the writer/director drops them in her path. Unfortunately, she also spends a large chunk of the movie in a coma, where the film really falls apart. Her refusal to give Rocky her blessing to fight Creed again is distracting for Rocky, which is subtly weaved into his training scenes that already contrast sharply with Creed's, but when she goes into a coma the film grinds to an excruciating halt. Besides one very touching bedside scene where a tearful Rocky tells her to sleep as long as she needs, the film is boring and slow while she's in her coma. We find ourselves pleading for her to just wake up already so we can get into the fight. Eventually, Adrian wakes up with all the drama of Seinfeld's The Other Side of Darkness and with probably the most hideous deus ex machina in film, has a change of heart and tells Rocky to win the fight. Then we get back to what we want: the glorious music, Stallone putting himself through hell as he trains, the big run up the Philadelphia steps (which is cheesy but utterly delightful when he's surrounded by locals). Unfortunately, the big fight is a colossal let down. Rocky is knocked down twice after taking about 50 hits to the head (so much for protecting his eyes) and shrugs it off with a "darn it". None of the punches feel real. There's no drama, because it's recycled. We don't feel Creed being worn down like he was in the first one and Rocky's continual getting up feels more like a film script than a genuine moment of triumph. When he finally knocks Creed out, I was just glad it was over.