** (out of ****)
Directed by, written by, & starring Sylvester Stallone.
Also starring Burt Young, Antonio Tarver, and Geraldine Hughes
2006
102 min PG
“Rocky Balboa” the movie is a lot like Rocky Balboa the person: a sincere, well-meaning lug who tells the same stories over and over again. You wish him well and you can’t imagine anyone possibly hating or even disliking him. But you also don’t feel the need to spend much time with him.
I watched the original 1976 “Rocky” back around 1998 when I made it my business to get through the entire AFI Top 100. It ranks in the upper 70s around “American Graffiti,” “The Wild Bunch,” and “The Deer Hunter.” It beat “Taxi Driver” at the Oscars for Best Picture, but revenge is sweet, with “Taxi Driver” coming in at #47 two decades later. I enjoyed “Rocky” but couldn’t see anything in it requiring five re-visits.
So I come to “Rocky Balboa” having not seen parts II through V, ignorant of them save TV Guide-esque synopses provided by my friends. And I find that “Rocky Balboa” is equal parts sequel and remake of the original. Rocky is now a widower of sixty with a son and a restaurant. The “shot at greatness” from the first film is replaced with “one last shot.” Other than that, the two films are virtually identical.
Rocky, his brother-in-law Paulie, and various trainer-mentor-romantic figures spout enough platitudes to fill a thousand fortune cookies. The final showdown is competent but nothing spectacular, not in the league of “Raging Bull” or “Cinderella Man” (yes, I can’t believe I’m defending “Cinderella Man” either). Male weeping and feeling-talk is sprinkled throughout.
But … this is one of the two roles in which Stallone is utterly convincing (the other being his dopey sheriff in “Cop Land”). I like that the message isn’t winning but getting up again despite losing. I like the grimy Philadelphia atmosphere. I like that the reigning champ who wants an exhibition match with Rocky is not a one-dimensional creep but a good kid turned into a spoiled brat by too many victories and too much money. Before their last round, he finally says something manly / complimentary to Rocky like “you a tough old bastard.” Rocky tells him “you’re getting there kid” and you want them to hug. And, yeah, there’s a training montage. Because it’s time for a montage.
It would be wrong to call “Rocky Balboa” lazy filmmaking, but it’s unnecessary and un-involving. But that’s just me – others might find it inspiring and not uninspired. I suppose it’s a movie for followers of the series.
** (out of ****)
Starring Russell Crowe, Albert Finney, Marion Cotillard, Freddie Highmore, Didier Bourdon, Abbie Cornish, and Tom Hollander
Directed by Ridley Scott & written by Marc Klein, from the novel by Peter Mayle
2006
118 min PG13
“A Good Year” died a quick death at the box office; I saw it at the Dollar Theater but the print was as clean as seeing it at Cinemark.
So you have a movie about a businessman being lured by the French countryside – the slowed-down lifestyle, the seasons, the sun, the ease. And director Ridley Scott (“Gladiator,” “Blackhawk Down”) illustrates all this with frantic editing, loud music, whirring cameras, and an endless battery of ringing cell phones. Less forgiving than me, Fernando Croce of Slant Magazine accurately says “A Good Year” “suggests not so much the stirring of a soul as Sir Ridley grinding his teeth behind the camera, grimly muttering ‘I’m going to be breezy if it kills me, goddammit!’” The movie is a jumble of comic contrivance, but we could forgive it that if Scott could capture the proper larkish atmosphere.
“A Good Year” is based on the so-so novel of the same name by Peter Mayle which is itself basically a fictionalized version of Mayle’s charming meal-obsessed memoir “A Year in Provence.” Russell Crowe plays a greedy corporate schmuck from London who, for one reason or another, is temporarily exiled to his late uncle’s chateau in Provence, where the locals reconnect him with his roots, teach him the error of his ways, and he learns the true meaning of Flag Day. Crowe mugs his way through, meeting a hot local (Marion Cotillard, a waitress at a bustling restaurant instead of the novel’s owner of a low-key café) and finding an unexpected hot cousin waiting for him (Abbie Cornish). He is played by Freddie Highmore in flashback, with Albert Finney as his uncle, dispensing fortune cookie wisdom at lower windbag levels than in “Big Fish.”
Ridley Scott may miss the point beneath all his gloss, but the movie is good-humored and has some fine moments. The best of which is the simplest, in which Crowe’s sidekick (Tom Hollander of “Pride & Prejudice” and “Pirates 2”) deadpans pricelessly upon finding Crowe’s hot cousin in a towel. Editor Dody Dorn of “Memento” and “Following” has fun with the hyperactive editing, even if it is grossly inappropriate.
And here’s something neat-o: Abbie Cornish of “A Good Year” is set to be in “The Golden Age,” the forthcoming sequel to 1998’s “Elizabeth,” in which Cate Blanchett reprises her star-making role, reunites with director Shekar Kapur, and Clive Owen plays Sir Walter Raleigh. Oh, and there’s going to be a sequel to “Elizabeth.”
Finished Thursday, December 28th, 2006
Copyright © 2006 Friday & Saturday Night