'Rocky Balboa' - a fitting end to the film series

Rocky with Marie
Originally uploaded by Brite light photos.

PHILADELPHIA, Penn. - Who would have ever thought that Sylvester Stallone could have written a movie that was tightly knit as a Charles Dickens novel?

In a mostly empty theater I watched the last in the Rocky film series, a movie that is more about relationships and the passing of time than boxing.

The fighting, in fact, is quite secondary, though spectacular as it was in the previous five movies, spanning 30 years.

The film is full of surprises and non-Rocky afficiandos might find parts of it hard to follow. He reunites with Marie, a minor character in the first Rocky movie. Spider Rico, the man Rocky pummeled in the opening scenes of the original Rocky is back, too.


Rocky prays with Spider Rico before the fight

But some of the most powerful scenes - and a denouement of sorts - involves Rocky with his son, who believes he is living in his father's shadow and forces a showdown of sorts.

Worth seeing? Yes. Worth seeing more than once? For me, absolutely.

Yo!


Rocky with his son