Rocky Balboa enjoys his success as the boxing champion. His alcoholic brother-in-law Paulie accosts him for not finding him a job, so Rocky tries to oblige. Rocky also accepts a "charity match" between Thunderlips, a wrestling champion who goes mad and even starts attacking the audience during the match. But an even bigger challenge awaits him: Lang, who insists on fighting Rocky. During the match, Lang defeats Rocky with a knockout, while Rocky's manager Mickey dies from a heart attack. Apollo Creed trains Rocky for a rematch, but it is not until Rocky's wife Adrian gives a motivational speech that Rocky gains interest. In the rematch, Rocky exhausts Lang by prolonging the battle to three rounds. Rocky defeats Lang.
With the 3rd instalment of the series, the "Rocky" franchize started to lose its luster: the repeat of the same old formula of the hero losing, and then training and then winning in a rematch started to get repetitive and tiresome, whereas some of its character seem as if they are barely in the movie at all—this is most indicative in Adrian, who played a crucial role in the first two films, only to appear as a mere extra in "Rocky 3", save for one sequence where she gives a motivational speech to the hero, which is too little. A certain sense of a story going past its prime is felt by this point. Even Rocky, who was initially a funny guy, seems to have lost his sense of humor and has been reduced to just a boxing machine. One rare moment where that old spirit from the first two films emerges again is when Rocky is trying to persuade a reluctant Mickey to train him one last time. Mickey refuses, so Rocky goes: "If you don't, I'm gonna tell everybody you ain't bought a new pair of underwear in 10 years." - "You would, wouldn't you?", says Mickey to him. Another is when the team goes to a shady neighborhood to be trained by Creed, and Paulie comments: "Even rats would have more self-respect than to be caught dead here!" Paulie's subplot, where the alcoholic lands in jail and is angry at Rocky, is resolved so fast that one wonders why it was necessary to be brought up in the first place, whereas it is especially insulting that Rocky needs to be trained again, from the start, as if he became a boxing champion without absorbing the basics a long time ago. At least Mr. T is effective as the arrogant challenger Lang, whereas the song "Eye of the Tiger" surprisingly became a classic. Despite its lack of inspiration, "Rocky 3" was such a huge box office draw that it was even more successful than the 1st and 2nd film, which, together with "First Blood", made Stallone dominate the box office in 1982.
Grade:+
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