45th anniversary of "Rocky II" - June 15th

I know I'm in the minority here, but I think it's the best of the sequels.

I liked it when I first saw it, but it went down a lot on a rewatch. It's almost like it was made as a "fix" of the first movie for idiots who didn't understand it. Apollo is suddenly this conniving Big Bad, and everything exists so we can get the same movie all over again only Rocky "wins" this time.

And the final fight is almost as ridiculous as anything in Rocky IV. The amount of headshots and lack of defense Rocky and Apollo display should have ended with both characters drinking out of straws for the rest of their lives.

The later sequels at least know what they are, and in the case of III, do Apollo justice.

A tale as old as Homer's Iliad 2 in which Achilles wakes up, rips the arrow out of his heel, and goes on a crazed journey across Greece having sex with every woman and twink he can find.

I really can't understate how much more I prefer Rocky III as a sequel.

Rocky II to me is the best of Rocky 2-5 run, but still much inferior to Rocky Balboa. The script works in a way but is really, really obvious. Stallone directs like someone who's got a back catalogue of dozen cheap television dramas. Which is funny and sad, because this was his his second work as director, after the ridiculously overacted Paradise Alley. I wish Avildsen would have been called back to direct this; his careful mise-en-scène could have made up for script's more routine moments, while with Stallone directing they tend to become emphasized instead.

Still, I like it. It's great to see actors from the first one back in their roles and it's still got that subdued 70s look that would be completely gone in the next two. Rocky III almost completely forgets Rocky's New Hollywood origins and goes for a big summer blockbuster vibe instead. Which it indeed does quite well, but for me Rocky, Rocky II and Rocky Balboa make a sort of trilogy for regular revisitings. Sometimes it's just Rocky/Rocky Balboa.

Just personal preference I guess.  I like the more realistic drama of the first two more than the cartoonishness of III and IV.  V tried to go back to that, but it was severely lacking and I like the sixth one but it felt unneeded to me.