Heavyweight boxing champion Apollo Creed challenges Soviet boxer Ivan Drago to a boxing match, despite the objections of his friend Rocky. In the match in Las Vegas, Drago knocks Apollo so heavy that Apollo dies. After the funeral, Rocky vows to avenge Apollo. Rocky's wife Adrian and son say farewell, as Rocky and his trainers Paulie and Duke travel to the Soviet Union to prepare for the upcoming match. Rocky trains in the nature and snow. In the boxing match, Rocky is able to knockout Drago and win the match, and later give a speech to the crowd to reconcile.
1985 was one of the best years in Sylvester Stallone's career: both sequels to his most commercial franchizes—"Rambo II" and "Rocky IV"—reached their most commercial heights, as both of these films were the 2nd and 3rd highest grossing films of the year. After a weak and routine "Rocky III", Stallone somewhat managed to improve the trend with this part 4, by connecting the boxing match with the Cold War rivalry. In the age of Trump-Vance, "Rocky IV" contains for today's age unheard-of vision of an American hero whose spirit defies Russian pressures and refuses to appease his own integrity and honor, as Rocky chooses to fight instead of to bow and give up in the name of easier concession. There are still problems in the story, whose formula has been pretty much established to the point of repetition: a setback; training montage; Rocky fights and wins in the boxing match.
The dialogues are underwritten and stale, and several characters are neglected to the point of becoming irrelevant (for instance, Adrian and Paulie), but Dolph Lundgren is very effective as the threatening Russian rival Drago, who doesn't need much words to transmit his anger with his looks. This is used in one of the best moments in the film, as Apollo is so perplexed with Drago's silence at the press conference that he humorously says: "The man's tongue didn't come through the customs!" Challenged that he can beat Drago, Apollo continues with another joke: "I've retired more men than Social Security!" The motivation for Rocky's urge to have a boxing match with Drago feels like a stretch, and the training montage feels too long, yet in the end it connects with Rocky's character arc that he needs to challenge and change himself every once in a while, to remain human, so he trains in nature, while Drago remains a robot, who trains in technological environment, and thus Rocky's genuine spirit edges him closer to his goal. The match isn't that well directed (though it has an aesthetic double exposure of Rocky and Drago fighting and moving from right to left, as a camera pan from right to left follows the faces of the audience in the "transparent" background), but the whole film is simply pure 80s flair, which has its own pathos.
Grade:++
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