Sylvester Stallone’s radical re-cut of Rocky IV shows his deep passion for the franchise
This look at Sylvester Stallone’s director’s cut of Rocky VI was originally published in 2021, when the new edit was released. It has been updated and republished in conjunction with the new interest in the Rocky series — and particularly Stallone’s place in it — following Creed III .
There’s nothing inherently wrong with Rocky IV, a film of ultra-commercialized 1980s beauty. Sylvester Stallone savvily capitalized on the anti-Russian swagger of Rambo: First Blood Part II to bring Western audiences a crowd-pleasing Cold War underdog story. The enemy: Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren), the Soviet Union’s pulverizing, pugilistic savior. “Whatever he hits, he destroys,” Drago’s ashtray-voiced handler brags. When the Russian kills Rocky’s former-adversary-turned-best-friend Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) in an exhibition match, it’s clear he’s got an all-American knuckle supper coming, and Stallone serves it up with loads of the MTV flash that was in vogue at the time.
Rocky IV is a significant film of its era. Nine movies into the franchise, it’s still the highest-grossing entry of the lot. It’s no one’s favorite Rocky movie, but no one in the history of the world has ever started watching it and turned it off. This is a scientifically proven fact. And it is a truth universally acknowledged that not a single person on the planet has ever been in want of a director’s cut.
Except for Stallone.
Given its remarkably slender narrative of 91 minutes, Rocky IV is more training montage than movie. So when Stallone announced his plan for an extended director’s cut, the notion sounded like grist for an SNL Digital Short. But the actor-director was deathly serious, and now, so is Rocky IV. This once-gaudy touchstone of ’80s cinema has
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