after winning the belt from Apollo, Rocky has had 10 successful title defends making him famous and giving him a stable life, so much so that all his ambitious seemed to be fulfilled and he feels to let his gloves hang. this is when the new upstart challenger comes in front of Rocky and accuses his team of not accepting his challenge offer which rocky himself wasn’t aware of. when Rocky confronted his manager Mickey (Burgess Meredith) about it he gets to know that this challenger James “Clubber” Lang (Mr. T) has been hungry for that belt which is an attribute lost in rocky now. even still Rocky takes the challenge and fights Lang only to lose a crushing defeat in the 2nd round. this results in a slump that affects Rocky and the one to take him out of this would be this rival Apollo Creed, he volunteers to train Rocky for the next Fight with lang for a future favour, and this is where the training montages begin. finally getting the hunger and his edge back Rocky challenges Lang and the fight begins. in the fight Rocky shows his revived self while Lang shows his inherent strength. to counter this Rocky takes a bold move and taunts Lang to make him get exhausted and using that to defeat him and reclaim the title.

now the movie ends with my favourite scene so far into this series, the closed room fight between Rocky and Apollo, that Apollo initiates using his Favor for the training. the scene ends with both of them throwing their first punch directly to each others faces simultaneously and film ending leaving us to decided how it ends (i guess we will never know….or never be told the result) to me this scene is a fitting conclusion to the rivalry and friendship that gets built up between these two individuals and acts like the cheery on top of the cake.

one thing that keeps getting pumped up and improved is the soundtrack and theme of the movie, the song ‘Eye of the Tiger’ is epic for the scene. the movie has a lot of training montages, he itself u see such a considerable difference that initially something that was rarely used now gets used before each fight and acts as the mirror to the characters determination. after watching the movie i was left with a thought that this series could have been a good trilogy itself even without anymore parts to it, though that has not been the case.

ranking time

now this is where it comes to a change overall this movie ranks in the same level to me as the first part not because it inherently that good most people will call it average but i like it because it gives the story a progression that reveals rocky as a character and as well as gives the supporting characters a chance to shine, and that last scene of Apollo and rocky fight sealed it for me

rocky III > Rocky > Rocky II

72 movies down ………….428 to go

see you soon

goodbye