Unlikely story... Sylvester Stallone floors heavyweight champion Mason "The Line" Dixon in Rocky Balboa. Photograph: David Bergman
You have to hand it to him, the guy doesn't know the meaning of the word "quit". He's 60 years old, and it's been a decade or more since he was a contender. The old bones are creaking and doubts have to be raised over his physical ability to do the job. But he's still in there fighting, determined to seize his last chance for glory with those butcher's hook fists.
We are, of course, talking about Sylvester Stallone, a faded Hollywood titan whose most notable acting moment of the last 10 years was in the abominable remake of Get Carter, in which he attempted the Michael Caine role to the utter despair of most right-minded members of the cinema-going public.
When news emerged that Sly was planning a sixth instalment in the Rocky franchise, most people could hardly even muster the energy to groan. Coming 16 years after the instantly forgettable Rocky V, it was written off as a last desperate attempt at raising a few bucks by an actor whose Hollywood star had fallen so far that he could only get studios to listen by further degrading his most memorable role. (They were wrong of course: Stallone still has Rambo IV, set for release in 2008, for that particular purpose.) Even Talia Shire, Rocky's beloved Adrian, seemed doubtful, her name conspicuous by its absence from the new movie's cast sheet.
And so it was with a sense of incredulity that I read some of the first reviews of Rocky Balboa, which hits US cinemas this weekend (it arrives here on January 19). For according to critics on the other side of the pond, not only is the new film an improvement on V, it's quite possibly the best thing Stallone has done in decades.
"Yet again, Rocky Balboa (and by extension Stallone himself) arrives in theatres as an underdog," writes Ethan Alter in Premiere. "But, for the first time in 30 years, you just might find yourself cheering him on."
"Rocky Balboa, effortlessly reflexive and patently, even proudly, absurd, is a tough movie to dislike - and believe me, I've tried," admitted Rob Nelson in the Village Voice.
At Rottentomatoes.com, the site which collates all the reviews of a particular film and gives it a rating based on the percentage of reviewers who have labelled it good to excellent, the film has an impressive 75% mark. Among the site's chosen "elite" critics the figure jumps to 90%.
It's the kind of outcome which makes you think the plot of Balboa isn't so unlikely after all. If a 60-year-old man can take on the reigning heavyweight champion of the world, why shouldn't a film about it make a decent picture? And after all, as my colleague Xan Brooks pointed out to me, the original Rocky was a bona-fide classic of 1970s blue collar cinema.
Still, has there ever been a franchise which has returned to such dizzy heights after floundering punch drunk on the canvass for so very, very long? Do help us out by posting your thoughts below, because we can't think of one.
