Down for the Count

AFEW WEEKS AGO a theater showed a coming attraction for Rocky III. The screen darkened, the familiar trumpets blared, and then the title appeared, one enormous letter after another. With each successive letter the audience's hissing grew a little louder. By the time Sylvester Stallone appeared, eyeing himself in a mirror, flexing his pectorals, the audience's laughter-almost drowned out his eloquent if terse exclamation: "Nothing is real if you don't believe in yourself?" There's a lot to be said for coming attractions.

A long time ago, Sylvester Stallone had charm: a down and out actor playing a down and out fighter. He wins the girl, and Rocky wins the Oscar. Horatio Alger at 6'2", 202 pounds. But newspapers soon reported that Stallone left his wife after he graced Newsweek's cover. Then he appeared in easily forgettable films like F.I.S.T. and Victory, making it easy not to like him too much. Rocky III makes it easier, even if, as reported, Sylvester and Sasha have decided to give their marriage one more try.

Charm carried the original Rocky and, to a lesser extent, Rocky II. As Rocky Balboa, Stallone created an American hero: raised in the inner-city, coached by the owner of a run-down gym, Balboa appeared hopeless in his quest for the heavyweight boxing championship. Although he ultimately failed to capture the championship. Balboa proved himself a worthy contender. And throughout all the excitement and promotion, he remained a sensitive, unassuming man, falling in love with and marrying a shy, unglamorous, though caring, woman.

Stallone's performance in Rocky resembled John Travolta's in Saturday Night-Fever. The Italian Stallion and the Italian With-The-Blow-Dried-Hair faithfully pursued their respective goals. Not only did both learn to love one woman, but they also came to appreciate the oft repeated assertion: it's not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game. Travolta passed on his dance contest prize to the obviously more deserving couple, and Balboa found fulfillment even without victory.

The two films succeeded because of their simplicity and unpretentiousness, charming audiences with principled, determined if not effect, heroes,. Moreover, each film's creativity compensated for its simple theme by introducing a wide range of supporting players. Rocky's stable of encouragers and Travolta's gang of side-kicks may have seemed two-dimensional, but they nevertheless fashioned likable, charming and fresh personalities.

Nothing in Rocky III seems fresh. And Rocky Balboa's charm wears thin. His lines are no longer startlingly expressive--they just seem startlingly ungrammatical and forced. "Nobody owes nobody nothing"; "it seems like everybody want to beat me up"; "don't get mentally irregular. "Maybe in Rocky, perhaps in Rockey II, these lines would work. But in Rocky III they are heavy handed and unoriginal, as if Stallone were trying to steal from his own previous films.

The plot of Rockey III serves as the only new addition. The movie begins with Rocky as a complacent and worshipped world champion; he lives in a mansion, drives a Model T around his grounds, and appears as a spokesman for American Express. Into this halycon world enters Clubber Lang (Mr. T), an enormous fighter who sports a mohawk. While Balboa runs around in designer suits, Lang really runs, getting in increasingly better shape as he climbs the boxing world's challenge ladder. Rocky agrees to fight Lang, taking on his former rival Apollo Creed as coach.

Although different on paper, the film's story line too closely resembles that of the previous Rockys. Rocky III employs the all-too familiar techniques calculated to move the audience: Balboa suffers a setback, receives a pep-talk from coach or wife, recommits himself to his goal, pushes himself almost beyond endurance, and then triumphs. Instead of working out in a decrepit Philadelphia gym, Rocky now travels with Creed to work out in a decrepit L.A. gym. Instead of falling to the mat with his dazed opponent (as in Rockey II.) Balboa now assumes a Bjorn Borg-like thanking-the-heavens pose after victory.

ALMOST THE ENTIRE supporting cast similarly lacks freshness. Rocky III has almost become it self-parody. In interviews, Talia Shire insists that she doesn't just want to be known as Francis Ford Coppola's sister. Better the sister of Apocalypse Now's maker than this most recent incarnation of Rocky's main squeeze. Shire parades through the film with but two emotions, and you can't miss them. When she's proud, she smiles hesitatingly, blanks back tears, and lowers her head. When she's worried, she frowns hesitatingly, blinks back tears, and lowers her head. Her character, however, has gained confidence: Adrian now occasionally wears her hair in a French braid.

Burt young recreates his role as Paul, Adrian's brother and Rocky's sometime assistant manager. Though an appealing character, Paul must speak lines that seem as original as the movie's premise. Walking down the back streets of L.A. with Creed and Rocky, he says, "Rats even have more pride than to be caught dead here." When Creed insists that Rocky jump rope to disco music. Paul complains, "Rockey can't train like a colored fighter. He ain't got no rhythm."

As Rocky's dying coach Mickey. Burgess Meredith gives an accomplished, however brief, performance. Perhaps its brevity explains its success. As a character, Mickey, like Adrian, Paul and Balboa, hasn't really changed since Rocky. But because he only appears for a relatively short time, Meredith manages to remind the audience of Mickey's likeability and commitment while avoiding over-kill. And Meredith performs with humor. He trains Rocky in a hotel ballroom, full of posters, balloons and a band that plays Rocky's theme song. Mickey turns and shouts. "Shut up back there. And change your tune." If only a producer had given Stallone similar advice.

The film's most pleasant surprise is Mr. T who once served as a bodyguard to Muhammed Ali. As Lang, he presents a determined and fearsome opponent. And Mr. T displays confidence and wit. Asked by a reporter whether he hates Rocky, he responds, "No, I don't hate Balboa." He pauses, turns towards the camera and drawls. "But I pity the fool."

Mr. T's fresh and original performance underscores the film's weakness. His character deserves an entire film, for Sylvester Stallone no longer seems to be playing Rocky Balboa, but rather Rocky Balboa and Sylvester Stallone. The beginning of the film chronicles Rocky's rising fame: he appears on telethons, advertisements, and magazine covers. Stallone even uses his old Newsweek cover, doctored only slightly for this sequence. And around Rocky's training ring, promoters have installed life-sized cardboard figures of Balboa, exactly like those promoters of this film have placed in the lobbies of movie theaters. The boundaries between make-believe and reality seem muddled. In Rockey and Rocky II, Stallone presented Balbon as an appealing and charming character; in Rocky III he presents himself as both Stallone the Celebrity and Balbon the Hero. The combination doesn't work.

Before this movie opened, newspapers reported that Stallon had offered Philadelphia the life-size statue of himself that appears in the film, apparently forgetting that Rocky is only a fictional hero. Stallone, however, imposed one charnels stipulation: if accepted, he insisted, the statue would have to stand near the entrance of the Philadelphia Art Museum, whose steps Stallone triumphantly climbs in Rocky. Unfortunately though, the city declined the offer, thus denying Philadelphia pigeons the opportunity to justly crown Rocky the Third.

Richard J. Appel