Rocky IV

The film runs through most of Leni Riefenstahl's bag of tricks as it builds up a patriotic frenzy, yet the crazed flag-waving would be a lot easier to take if it weren't so clearly a commercial calculation meant to salvage what is otherwise a crass, careless, shamelessly padded film. Read full review

Rocky IV is a far cry from the delights (both large and small) of its illustrious original. Read full review

All the air has gone out of Rocky, something Stallone, who also wrote and directed, seems to realize -- he won't leave his movie alone. It's riddled with hapless gimmickry: zooms, slow motion, double images, freeze frames, embarrassing MTV-style montages, a noisy, aggressive sound track, and flashback after flashback to the movies that have gone before, in order to remind you why you're there, as if to insist, "See, this used be a good idea." [28 Nov 1985, p. E1]

This is grim and witless storytelling, and what makes it so depressing is that it hasn't improved by so much as a chemical trace since the days of the first "Rocky." Read full review

A scant hour and a half long, padded with clips from earlier Rocky pictures, adding nothing to his mythic, let alone human dimensions, it lacks even the primitive suspense and crude capacity to release underdog emotions that permitted its predecessors to conquer one's better judgment. Read full review