Now we've done Creed, the obvious Rocky character needing a spin-off is the "HappyBirthdayPaulie" robot from Rocky IV. Good God he is hilarious, a ridiculous idea that shouldn't work but has just the right amount of screen time in an already pretty ridiculous movie that it does. The scene where a stunned Apollo tries to get back on his train of thought after it interrupts a key conversation is unashamed comedy gold. Not all the eighties cheese works though. This is the political one, where Stallone got rid of any subtly in what he felt Rocky represented; he's the all-American hero, so obviously needs to go up against a symbol of USSR might, in this case Dolph Ludgren's Ivan Drago. There's some interesting stuff done with these two characters - Drago seems at first bewildered by the spectacle of boxing and by the end of the fight the duo's allegiances cease to matter - but it's so overshadowed by the Cold War paranoia that, by today's standards, it's irritating. Some people seem to let the silliness of all that carry the film, but trying to quell the nostalgia, as a film this just doesn't work. The first half hour, with Creed's urge to fight again leading to his death, is actually quite good (and has retroactively given more weight), but what follows is nothing more than an endless stream of training montages (with the only good one being No Easy Way Out) and a tensionless final fight that only lets Rocky win because he needs to (and, heck, even that's mostly told in montage).
