As I stated on the first leg of this countdown, I love a good montage. And those which appear in the Rocky movies are among the best and most motivating of any training montages ever put on film. In this clip from ROCKY II, we get two for the price of one.
The two montages here appear within seconds of each other. They are only split by a short scene of Rocky putting his newborn son--aka Kid--to sleep in his crib. I guess Sly couldn't figure out how to bridge the two "montage songs" musically so he had no other choice than to break them up with short clip that further reveals our hero's gentle side.
Let it be known that while I enjoy both of these montages, I think the time span in which they occur in the film is sure to push any audience into motivational overload. Hence Sly's attempt to bring us down with a clip of what I like to call "soft Rock." But, alas!, it doesn't work. It takes a whole lot more than a few seconds and a baby to bring me down from the first montage, one that leaves me--from almost the very beginning--ready to conquer the world. The bell: dong...dong.... And then Mickey: "What are we waitin' fer?" The silhouette of Rocko against the morning sky doing one-armed push-ups. The music....
All I can say is it gets the blood flowing.
1 comment:
The hospital bed scene in Rocky II is really great, causing Harrogate too to feel that great swell of inspiration as we head into the twin montages.
Really, the transition moment with Sly putting his baby to bed isn't that terrible considering it serves to remind that he has a whole other life going on outside of the intense training.
Not as good as the first movie, not as good of a montage overall, either. But you gotta admit it's pretty spine tingling when all those kids start thronging behind him to the point that he's got a veritable nation of children pouring up the now-hallowed museum steps with him, and chanting his name at the very end of the montage.
Oxymoron, this has been a very deftly handled series of posts on the Rocky franchise, Harrogate salutes you for so getting at the heart of what makes it special.
And, Harrogate shares your hope that Rocky VI will return us to the roots of the first one, and consequently deserve mention as a great movie. We shall see.
At the very least it seems we can bank on a marked improvement over the one with Tommy Gunn!
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