TheRetroCritic

Before Sylvester Stallone breathed new life into the Rambo franchise with a particularly violent new outing, he gave Rocky one more shot with Rocky Balboa and miraculously did not mess it up. This sixth Rocky instalment should have been a disaster or at least an unforgivably bland retread. Instead, Sly takes what made the old Rocky movies great, updates all the characters to what they would be like in present day and makes it work. He doesn't go down the dumb, "let's make Rocky into James Bond" route Die Hard 4.0 style focusing more on the emotional baggage those much older characters are carrying. Adrian has died, so has Mickey, Rocky's on his own running a restaurant, his son (played by Heroes ' Milo Ventimiglia) wants nothing to do with him and although he's got the respect of those people who recognise him as the legendary boxer he is, there's just something missing. Meanwhile, some new boxing champion is dissatisfied with the criticis