Rocky IV: Rocky vs. Drago
I’ve been curious to watch Sylvester Stallone’s Director’s Cut of “Rocky IV” for a while now. Discussing the 1985 film on the podcast seemed like the best excuse to finally dive into it.
“Rocky IV” was one of the favorites I had as a kid, even though I didn’t really watch the franchise as a whole. I’ve talked about my love of the underdog sports genre a lot, and in bringing us such an imposing figure as Dolph Lundgren’s Ivan Drago to go up against Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) and Rocky Balboa, it doesn’t get more underdog than that. How would Stallone recut the film- one of the most popular in the franchise- that gets rid of Paulie’s robot, which is in more of the original film than we probably want to remember, and streamlines the montage-heavy narrative? I’ll admit- the results surprised me.
The surprises start right away with the beginning being more of a reference to “Rocky III,” and especially how Rocky and Apollo’s friendship begins. We then jump straight into Drago coming to the US, and Creed wanting to fight him. Things I do miss in this jump is the friendly fight between Apollo and Rocky after his second fight with Clubber Lang, and the sweet anniversary moment between Rocky and Adrian (Talia Shire). The fact that half an hour in, we’ve gotten the fight between Apollo and Drago is a good bit of re-editing; this film is truly looking to be about Rocky and Drago fighting.
“Creed II” did a fairly good job bringing Drago back into the world of Rocky as an old man, with Adonis Creed taking on a fight with Drago’s son. I wonder how much of that experience inspired this recut of “IV,” because one thing we do get here are little moments with Drago that make him a bit more human than the original cut did. We also get more depth in the second act with Adrian before Rocky goes to Russia, as well as a scene in front of the boxing commission before the fight with Drago is announced.
Once the film gets to Russia, there are not a lot of structural and narrative differences. Rocky’s son- once a big part of the cuts during Rocky and Drago’s fight- is absolutely gone, in part because Stallone made a conscious effort to completely excise the robot that Rocky got Paulie (Burt Young) for his birthday. There is also some changes to Rocky’s victory speech, and the way the film ends, dovetailing much better into “Creed II” and where Drago is in that film. “Rocky vs. Drago” improves the film considerably, and though I still enjoy the original cut- credit where it’s due- Stallone made one of his most iconic films better.
