Rocky II (1979)

Film: Rocky II (1979)

Stars: Sylvester Stallone, Talia Shire, Burt Young, Carl Weathers, Burgess Meredith

Director: Sylvester Stallone

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2026 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the men & women who created the Boom!-Pow!-Bang! action films that would come to dominate the Blockbuster Era of cinema.  This month, our focus is on Sylvester Stallone: click here to learn more about Mr. Stallone (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Sylvester Stallone's early life & career are interesting enough that they're literally releasing a biopic about it in the next year.  Born the son of an astrologer and hairdresser (both of whom, if their later outbursts on talk shows & reality television appearances were any indication, were probably not the most fit parents you could imagine), he grew up in a working class background.  Due to a mistake during his birth, he was left with some paralysis on his lower face, meaning that he consistently looked like he was grimacing, which he was mocked for in school.  This would've probably deterred most young people, but Stallone dreamed of being an actor & director, and so he headed to Hollywood.

Stallone's early years in Hollywood are honestly pretty bleak.  He struggled to find work, and at one point has admitted that he literally was homeless, sleeping in bus stations.  He got work in a softcore pornography film (you read that right) called The Party at Kitty and Stud's (Stallone would play Stud), and pursued extra work, eventually getting some in MASH, Bananas, & What's Up Doc?.  Stallone's big break happened through his own hard work-he wrote a script for the film Rocky, with the intention of him playing the lead part given Hollywood was not giving him these kinds of roles.  The film got the attention of producers Irwin Winkler & Robert Chartoff, who were making a name for themselves at the time by producing crime & action pictures starring established leading men like James Caan & Charles Bronson.  Stallone refused to sell the script, even with an offer of over $350k (over $2 million today) and the recent memory of homelessness on the line, unless they let him star in the film.  The producers relented (eventually having to cut the budget without someone like Robert Redford or Burt Reynolds as box office insurance), but Stallone's gambit paid off.  The film made over $200 million, and was not just the highest-grossing film of 1976, but (after Star Wars) out-earned every other film from 1977 the following year.  The movie would win the Best Picture Oscar, and Stallone would get nominations for both Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay (ultimately losing both to Network).  Just a few years after sleeping in bus depots, Sly was now one of the biggest names in Hollywood.

(Spoilers Ahead) I have seen Rocky many times because my parents had cable in the 90's, and to be fair, I've probably seen chunks of all of the first five Rocky movise thanks to the marathons TV stations would run of it during this era ad nauseum, but I believe this is the first time I've ever sat down and truly watched Rocky II cover-to-cover.  The film takes place immediately after the events of the previous film, when Apollo Creed (Weathers) has just defeated Rocky Balboa (Stallone) in a tight contest, which has put a chink into Creed's armor even if he lost (given Rocky came out of nowhere).  The film starts with Creed demanding a rematch, but given that Rocky has promised Adrian (Shire) he won't fight anymore, he won't give into one.  But the film shows the pitfalls in one's 15 minutes of fame, and after a while Rocky can't get a job, and is broke with a kid on the way.  He realizes that the only way that he's ever going to provide the kind of life he wants for his newborn son and young wife is to fight, even if it's putting his life at risk due to injuries from the first film.  Rocky begins training again with Mickey (Meredith), and in a climactic final scene, does what he couldn't do in the first film-he wins, defeating the heavyweight champion of the world (and thus becoming it himself).

Rocky II, here directed & written by Stallone himself (something that he would do throughout his career with other films-Stallone directed more of his own movies than he gets credit for in conversations about his work), is not Rocky, and it's not nearly as well-regarded as some of the other follow-ups in the series.  Part of that problem is because the film itself is not well-made, being too repetitive of problems from the first film, and too ridiculous about trying to convince the audience that the fight (and the redemption from it) won't result in Rocky defeating Apollo Creed.  Stallone, as we'll find this month, is a more talented actor than Schwarzenegger was last month (it helps that English is his first language), though not as versatile as, say, Sean Connery.  There's a naturalism to his Rocky that almost makes it feel like he's playing himself, which isn't really fair given he'd play against this type repeatedly, including in our movie next week.  But the script here is too paint-by-numbers, and it takes too long to get to the (thrilling) final scene.