As a metatextual statement on Sylvester Stallone's career, Rocky Balboa can be respected. Both Stallone and his alter ego want to prove they still have whatever it was that made them great. That task has been made harder by the memories of Rocky V. Okay, in Stallone's case, by a lot more movies than that one.

At heart, too, they both seem like decent enough people. We want to root for them both, though the excesses of Stallone's life definitely tinge Rocky Balboa's. The bad plastic surgery alone makes Rocky look like a wax dummy of himself, which almost creates a post-modern feedback loop every time the camera comes close to reveal that maybe, just maybe, this thing breathes.

Then again, Rocky wouldn't appreciate the use of terms like "metatextual" and "post-modern," and so we could write this one off as simply a well-intended failure. Rocky might be okay with that.

But Stallone, writing and directing, is clearly reaching for more. Like Rocky standing table-side at his restaurant, regaling customers with stories of his old fights, Stallone can't quite understand why he isn't more loved instead of tolerated. Once upon a time, he was a hot director.

Talented, yes, but Stallone also had a weakness for pandering to audiences. Rocky IV and Rambo: First Blood Part II were films that absolutely summed up the excesses of eighties filmmaking, and an older, wiser Stallone keeps fighting against his crowd-pleasing tendencies. Especially since the crowds he once pleased are older and wiser, too. Or at least older.

So we get a meditation on the champion in his autumn years. He still hangs out with Paulie (Burt Young), no more patient or couth than before. Somehow, Talia Shire ducked reprising Adrian, or perhaps Stallone decided it would make for greater drama if the love of Rocky's life died before him. At any rate, her ghost doesn't just haunt the film; it too often weighs it down. When Paulie screams at Rocky that he can't obsessively relive all the high points of Rocky and Adrian's courtship anymore, the audience has to agree.

One character trying to shed the past is Rocky Jr. (Milo Ventimiglia), shallowly written as feeling overshadowed by his father and improbably reformed by a Rocky soliloquy that should have subtitles flashing "Sylvester Stallone's Life Philosophy." If not that, it definitely shouldn't have been repeated in voice-over at a climactic moment.

At the same time, Rocky tries to play father figure to Steps (James Francis Kelly III), the son of "Little Marie" (Geraldine Hughes), the foul-mouthed little girl from the first film. When the two sons collide, the only friction comes from their shoulders accidentally rubbing while wearing "Team Rocky" jackets. Though Stallone plants the seeds of a quieter drama, he also has to prove that he's still got it as an athlete.

To that end, he sets up an opponent that does remind us that the glory days of heavyweight boxing seem far away. Real-life light heavyweight champion Antonio Tarver fills in the outline of Mason "The Line" Dixon, a character with traces of regret that never get to really flourish. His backstory seems borrowed from Mike Tyson, with a happier ending and a jarring moment when Tyson actually cameos in the film.

The conflict, however, seems forced. For that matter, every plot turn here feels like it's just going by the numbers. While the videogame match-up between Dixon and Balboa makes a clever moment, it's hard to swallow as the first domino to lead to a real fight.

Then again, part of the problem is that Stallone successfully popularized this formula. When Rocky trains, you might faintly hear Trey Parker and Matt Stone singing "Montage," but remember that they were mocking Stallone in the first place. The irony is as thick as Rocky's hands.

Yet the movie still has crowd-pleasing power. Stallone has kept pace with modern film-making techniques, experimenting with color and angles in a way he couldn't have twenty years ago. Even though it's manipulative, the third act still has some whimsy and a sense of the sportsmanship of boxing that the sport itself seems to have lost. And then there's closing credits that could easily have been mawkish but instead feel exuberant.

Rocky Balboa isn't brilliant, but it is earnest. It just doesn't have the confidence or the daring to do much more than walk down memory lane and say good-bye to a character that really has become an American icon. For some people, that will be enough.

Rating:

Derek McCaw