Plastic Jesus

By Frank Rich

ROCKY II

Directed and Written by Sylvester Stallone

In Rocky II, Sylvester Stallone purports to be playing Rocky Balboa, the same long-shot prizefighter who "went the distance" in 1976. Don't believe it. After several years spent reading his own press clips, this star is now far too big to play a mere mortal from Philadelphia. There is only one role that can contain Stallone these days, and in his new movie he graciously undertakes the assignment. That role is God.

Rocky II is the most solemn example of self-deification by a movie star since Barbra Streisand's A Star Is Born. Though ostensibly the story of Rocky's marriage to mousy Adrian (Talia Shire) and his rematch with World Heavyweight Champ Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers), the film is not overly concerned with matters of romance or pugilism. The pivotal scenes all illustrate, in picture-book fashion, the hero's saintliness. We learn that Rocky loves animals: "I love animals," he announces early on, and then proceeds to devote a sizable amount of screen time to the care and feeding of his pet dog and turtles. His belief in prayer is second only to Billy Graham's, and his devotion to Adrian is absolutely firm. When the couple buy a new house, Rocky tells her, "The solid oak floors and the plumbing would mean nothing without you being here."

The movie's obligatory set piece, a reprise of Rocky's triumphal jog up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, now looks like a tableau out of Cecil B. De-Mille: as Bill Conti's musical theme reaches celestial heights, hundreds of young disciples gather to cheer Stallone on. One almost expects him to wrap himself in the flag; perhaps he is saving that piece de resistance for Rocky III.

There might have been fun in Rocky II, but not with Stallone serving as writer and director. During its first half, the film offers tedious exposition that exists solely to keep the big fight at bay. The script's stalling techniques are random and far fetched. Stallone tries to create drama out of Rocky's inexplicable inability to gain steady employment, his domestic foibles and, finally, out of his wife's simultaneous bouts with childbirth and coma. These developments are so poorly conceived that Adrian's brother (a newly slim Burt Young) must dart in and out of scenes to deliver plot information. Once Rocky starts to train in earnest, the film becomes less a sequel than a prosaic remake. "For a 45-minute fight, you got to train 45,000 minutes," barks Trainer Burgess Meredith. He isn't kidding.

The only well-staged sequence is the fight, which is sufficiently suspenseful and lifelike to save the movie from box office disaster. With the addition of Dolby Stereo this time around, every left hook sounds like a rocket taking off in Star Wars. Otherwise, the direction is crude.

Stallone uses montages more than any other director since Eisenstein; he does not seem to understand that movie cameras are now mobile. All the performances are italicized and phony, a sad descent from the original Rocky. At one point in the new film, Rocky balks when a hustler suggests the marketing of a "Rocky doll"; yet, that is exactly how Stallone has merchandised himself here. The Rocky we see in Rocky II is best suited for mounting on a dashboard .

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.