The first third of the film drags in places, with Paulie and Adrian getting sidelined and simplified into caricatures. It's a bit off-putting but eventually the story overcomes this shortcoming. Now that it was the 1980's, Stallone had a whole different look and persona to him, and Rocky here feels a lot less like the fictional character and more like Stallone himself. For one, Stallone seems to have shed much of the character he'd so carefully crafted in the first two movies. There's plenty to love in this film but I'll get a few of the problems out of the way first. Unexpectedly, this one stood out to me as the most enjoyable, though I did appreciate the heart of the first movie and the catharsis of the second. At the age of 42 and as a self-professed life-long film buff and movie critic, I am a little embarrassed to admit that I only this week got around to watching the ROCKY films in order from the start.
