ROCKY VS DRAGO
I think this new cut is the better film, eliminating so much fluff and starting on the sequence in which Rocky throws his helmet at his statue, being fed up with the hero worship and what it has turned him into - only to get into a situation in which he has to become that hero again.
Still, the original cut, a typical mid-80‘s film with all of its silly excess, worked back then terrifically. Today, the two long sequences of flashbacks, seem filler material in the form of a music video. However, back then the films were not available so easily as they are today, so the callback to those scenes in earlier Rocky films were helpful and even welcome.
While I at first was hesitant to watch Rocky IV again, thinking of Stallone‘s awful kneefall before the current US king, the film did remind me quickly of the easy charme of the Rocky character.
Yes, it’s all simplistic, formulaic and jingoistic. But the first fight between Creed and Drago with that Vegas and James Brown intro actually shows the immense hubris which seems to be built into the American soul, setting itself up for a terrible fall. And then the training montage with the old-fashioned use of nature against high-tech, cut so effectively to Vince DiCola’s score, made me almost want to pick up weights again myself.
Finally, the fight with Drago. It’s so weird that something which has been done three times before in this film still literally packs such a punch. The moment when Rocky, after getting pummeled by that truly frightening fight machine with that black teeth protector, actually lands a few hits, surprising everyone, including Drago himself, is perfectly shot, edited and scored.
And from that moment on I was reminded again that the Rocky films work on me because they are so primal, reducing everything to a basic good vs bad fight which ends with good triumphing against all odds.
Oh, if that could only happen in real life again.
So, yes, the new cut is superior, but the old cut is still fine.