Rocky IV (1985)

This week, the Dads close out the 2025 Dadvent Calendar with Rocky IV (1985), a film they openly question is even a movie at all. Steve's verdict: it's two boxing matches and four music videos loosely tied together with a little bit of dialogue. Nic calls it eight montages in a trench coat. They're both right. The Dads marvel at the sheer audacity of a 91-minute runtime that somehow contains nearly 30 minutes of training sequences, driving montages, and flashbacks set to complete songs that fade out naturally, as if Stallone couldn't bear to cut a single track short. The Christmas bonafides are slim: the final fight takes place on Christmas Day, there's a tree visible behind Rocky's son, and the robot wears a Santa hat. That's it. That's the Christmas.

Ah yes, the robot. The dads cannot get over the fact that Rocky gifts his brother-in-law Paulie a talking robot servant for his birthday instead of the sports car he wanted. This is a Season 7 of ALF type decision, Nic notes, a creative choice that belongs in no franchise. Meanwhile, Rocky gives his wife Adrian a wraparound watch and a deeply unsettling anniversary cake featuring bride-and-groom figurines in boxing gloves. The implications are not great. Carl Weathers, doing all the heavy lifting as Apollo Creed, gets a full James Brown concert before getting beaten to death in an exhibition match while Rocky holds the towel and does nothing. The Dads point out, correctly, that Rocky is the villain of his own movie: a man who let his best friend die, then abandoned his family on Christmas to fight in Soviet Russia because he needed to avenge a guy he clearly loved more than his wife.

It's loud, sweaty, deeply stupid, and somehow still kind of fun if you treat it like the world's most expensive music video compilation.