So sometimes when you see some old movie that you’ve absorbed through the zeitgeist without seeing, you’re surprised by it — like, I really didn’t expect Psycho to be what it was, you know? But then sometimes, it’s basically exactly what you expected.

He’s a down on his luck loser who gets a shot at the bigtime? Yep. Training montage where he runs up the steps of the Philadelphia Lincoln Memorial or whatever that is? Yep. Shouts “Yo, Adrian!” a lot? Yep. Big climactic fight scene? You know it.

The movie kind of flirts with being more than an underdog sports movie here and there — like with the character of Paulie, who is a horrific nightmarish figure prone to vicious outbursts of undirected violence, but is supposed to be his good friend, are they doing something with that? But they end up not really taking that anywhere: Dude takes a baseball bat to his living room, and it’s all good, just guys blowing off steam, I guess.

Anyway, it’s not a bad movie or anything, it’s just… a movie. Like, in the same genre, I legit think Karate Kid is the better movie. I guess maybe this gets the nod for being first? If there weren’t a bunch of underdog sports movies before this one, it’d stand out more; I’m not sure if that’s the case or not. It’s probably better than Cool Runnings, all things considered.

Random notable things:

  1. I didn’t know Carl Weathers was Apollo Creed! I only know him from Predator and Arrested Development (obvs), but apparently he was a legit big star back when.

  2. I feel like Creed’s character is massively underdeveloped. Like, obviously he’s just in this movie to be the foil for Rocky, but I feel like his story would be a lot more interesting. It almost makes me want to see that Creed movie, except that I suspect I’d have to watch a bunch more Rockys first, and I have no desire to do that.

  3. Man, boxing. It’s hard to believe this used to be a popular sport, it’s just so vicious. Who would watch this for fun? Why?

  4. I was curious in the beginning how we’d get from “he’s a down on his luck schlub” to “he’s got a chance to take on the champ,” but then it turned out to be basically a Willy Wonka Golden Ticket level of contrivance, so uh yeah, that was dumb.

  5. The one thing I was faked out on was that I assumed Rocky would have a falling out with Adrian, and then he’d have to win her back at the end. But in fact, their tepid romance basically continued on a totally even keel the whole movie and he did “get the girl” at the end, but like they were already pretty much just straight-up together anyway.