Tonight's special event features two great athletes in
the blue corner weighing 221 pounds, the former heavyweight
champion of the world, the dancing destroyer,
the king of sting, the count of Monte
Cristo. Yo, you think you got enough names? Patience, Digger, almost done.
The master of disaster, the one and only Apollo
Ivan Drago not anticipating a great fight now as Apollo is in the ring.
He's playing to the crowd.
In the red corner weighing 261 pounds,
gold medalist and undefeated world amateur
champion from the Soviet Union. The Siberian
ball, Ivan Drago.
I want you. I want you. I want you. Now the
two fighters come to the center of the ring for the instructions. From referee Lou
Filippo. You boys know the rules. Watch your low blows,
kidney punches, rabbit punches. In case of a knockdown, you go to the corner
I tell you to, and you stay there until I tell. You to come out.
Shake hands, let's have a good fight. All right, it's time to go to school,
son. Come on, get your hands up, man. You need an interpreter?
It's time to go to school. You're gonna lose.
It's too damn It's the podcast where two middle-aged dads
sit around and shoot the shit about the movies of the 80s and 90s.
Here are your hosts, Steve Followow and Nick Briana.
Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Two Dads, One Movie.
I'm Steve. And I'm Nick. And today we are opening up the fifth and final
door on the 2025 Dadvent Calendar. And Nick, what movie's
behind that door? The most Christmasy movie of all time, possibly.
This is 1985's Rocky IV. Rocky IV,
starring Sylvester Stallone, And let's start with the big question. Nick,
is this a Christmas movie?
I think they say Christmas in it twice.
So because the Dadvent calendar this year had four windows, or had
five windows in it, I thought, okay, maybe let's go a little wild with the
next one. I do have to admit to everybody listening, it's 5 a.m. on New
Year's Eve morning right now as we're going live. And I know we have a
late night coming up tonight, so. Maybe I was just a little out of my
mind, but I do remember in watching this movie that the fight took place
on Christmas Day for no money. Yes. And I
thought, hey, this would be fun to throw in there, and let's see if there's
any other even nods towards Christmas during the entire film. And there are a
couple of minor whiffs of Christmas, but I'm not gonna-- this is not the
rotation with It's a Wonderful Life with the family every year. No, this would definitely
qualify as the least Christmasy, most maybe Christmas-adjacent
movie that we added to the Dadvent Calendar this year, and that's okay.
We can definitely stretch that definition however we'd like to go.
Real quick, I think I'm just gonna run down before we get any further into
it. Rocky IV's Christmas bonafides. The bout between Drago
and Balboa does take place on Christmas Day. Yep. All right. Yep.
When Rocky's son, Robert Jr., is watching his
dad box on TV on Christmas Day, there is a Christmas tree behind him.
It's visible and it's lit and everything. And the robot is wearing a Santa
hat and beard. Okay. I think there's also a very
brief sound of the Chipmunk Christmas song
at some point when they're in Russia. So, yeah, I mean, this is basically
Miracle on 34th Street. I don't know what anyone's talking about. I love, too,
that there is a very big, important plot point in this movie where someone
is given a gift and it is not a Christmas gift at all.
It's Paulie's birthday. So there is that, too. Okay.
I question not only, to be honest with you, whether this is a Christmas movie,
I question whether this is a movie at all. Because to me, it felt a
lot more like two boxing matches and four music videos, kind of loosely
strung together with a little bit of dialogue. There's not a whole lot. Can you
see what I wrote down right there? Eight montages in a trench coat. Yes,
exactly. Eight montages in a trench coat. It is not a movie, you're correct.
You nailed the whole thing. So two dads is a hell of a lot of
fun. Artistic film project or something? I'm not even really sure what we're doing today,
but that's okay. That's okay. All right. Well, before we get into the facts on
it, Nick, you picked the movie for us. Tell us about your history with Rocky
IV. Why'd you pick it for us other than to have this conversation about whether
it's a Christmas movie, which was clearly part of the point. Yeah, I just thought
this would be kind of fun to see. Like, how does this have any Christmas
in it? I remember it taking place on Christmas. But also, I haven't watched a
Rocky movie in such a long time. And I
was very curious now, we've been talking about movies so much, and I've been thinking
about them differently over the last year since we started the pod. And just like,
how would this hold up? How would I take this at this point? And I
remember this being one that has all these memorable visuals and
characters and stuff in the setting, but is it any good? And we'll get
to that. Yes, we will. How about you? Yeah, for my part,
I think this is a movie, I mean, it wouldn't have been a theater thing.
We were like, what, five when this came out, give or take. So I wouldn't
have seen this in theater, but probably pretty early on, it is PG. It was
a massive smash success hit, which we'll get into in a minute. It really was
a huge cultural thing. Obviously, just even the whole
US versus USSR kind of Cold War part to it is hugely influential
as well. So I probably saw this when I was like eight or nine years
old on TV or on VHS or something like that.
And I've never been a huge fan of the Rocky movies. It's never really been
my wheelhouse. And I always felt that the
original Rocky, where he is the sort of completely unknown, he's trying to come
up and make his name, and he loses to Creed at the end. Like,
that's the best of the Rocky movies. Everything that came after is like
Stallone digging into the character further to see what other pots of gold there might
be underneath right after he got at least the nomination, maybe even the win
for best original screenplay for the first one. Yeah, for the first one. Yeah.
So it was very, that was his first golden statue. And so I'm sure he
kept, you know, but somewhere along the line, he clearly abandoned that sort of
process or pursuit when it came to the Rocky movies for just like,
hey, can we make something that's going to make hundreds of millions of dollars?
And the answer is, yeah, dude, you can over and over again. All right.
Let's jump into this. Let's hear some facts. Yeah, let's talk about this. All right,
the movie Rocky IV with a PG rating was released on November
21st, 1985. Sounds like maybe right before Thanksgiving that year,
not 100% sure. Running time of 91 minutes, maybe.
Crisp. Here's the thing, I'm gonna stop for a second, because a 91-minute movie,
most screenplays equal somewhere around the average one
page of screenplay per minute of screen time. That's an average.
Movies that are super heavy dialogue movies will be longer than that per minute,
and movies that are almost most all action will be shorter than that per minute
because action takes up less space on the page. I don't know for sure,
and I really now wish I'd looked. I bet the screenplay for this movie is
about 40 pages long, give or take, for a 91 minute movie. Yeah. There's just
so little dialogue and there's so little action other than, like, they could
literally have put the last 25 minutes in as, like, boxing match. Rocky wins.
Like, I mean, that could have been. Yeah, the screenplay. So it'll be interesting to
look. I'll have to look back. The movie written by Directed by and
starring one Sylvester Stallone. We love you, Sylvester. Co-starring Dolph Lundgren
and Carl Weathers. Scores. Rotten Tomatoes 39% rotten
on Rotten Tomatoes. On IMDb a 6.9, which is
definitely below kind of the minimum good threshold tends to hit right around that seven.
We got a thumbs up from Gene Siskel and a thumbs down from Roger
Ebert. This was a...
Critically awarded film. Ooh. In many ways, right?
So at the 1986 Razzie Awards,
it walked home with four such trophies. I don't know if they're actually raspberries
or what they are. So Sylvester Stallone won worst actor,
but he did have to share that honor between Rocky IV and his role as
Rambo in Rambo: First Blood Part II. It was a dual award from the Razzies
that year. But he also won worst director for this movie. And then Bridget Nielsen
won worst new star, and she shared that with her role in Red Sonia came
out in '85 as well. And Worst Supporting Actress, Talia Shire,
it should be mentioned, also nominated for Worst Supporting Actress. But Bridget Nielsen just beat
her out for it. So good for you, Bridget. So loaded with steroids. Yeah,
lots of Razzie action here on Rocky IV. On a $31 million
budget, it pulled in $300 million at the box office for nearly ten times
what it cost. So regardless of all that Razzie Award stuff and 39% Rotten
Tomatoes, massive blockbuster hit, huge movie, no doubt about it.
I would love if there's any resource, I mean, if anybody listening knows,
can let us know, is there a resource that kind of breaks down how a
budget, you know, is comprised? Because I would love to know how much of that
31 million was paid to Stallone as star and director. I know. Because he's a
writer as well. Yeah. So, I mean, how much did he scrape off that before
you even started making the movie? Must have had a quote for each of
his roles. He must have had, like, if you want Sylvester Stallone to direct,
that costs this. If you want him to act, that costs this. And if you
want to write, that costs this. Even if we assume that, like, the writing credit
now he's a Oscar award winning screenwriter. So it's not like he's not
good. But even if we accept that that's only like a million or two,
like something fairly on the low side as director, maybe not a ton of experience.
I can't remember how many other movies he directed before this, but like, yeah,
maybe that's another two or three. But like, as an actor, he was probably pulling
in six or seven million in the mid-80s, right? He was like the big time.
So you gotta figure 10 million of that 31 was just a paste alone.
Like easily, man. That's all guessing, of course. But yeah.
I mean, this has his fingerprints all over it. Yeah. So.
Fingerprints, his taint, sweat, everything.
This is maybe, it's one of the sweatiest movies I've
ever seen, although I am constantly proven wrong by that with subsequent
films. So we'll see about that. But yeah, so let's start it off.
This movie could not have gotten you any more fired up. If you're
a big, and I haven't watched the other Rockies recently, so I'm not like,
Ooh, I just finished three last year. Yeah, it's like, whatever. But you don't need
to, it doesn't matter, because they all have very hearty recaps of
previous films. Yep. Each non-Rocky I film has
a whole. Lot of footage of other Rocky films. Exactly.
Yeah, that 91 minutes is also deceptive, 'cause how much of that was newly filmed
for this movie? So we were talking about, is this a movie? Maybe it's a
video collage of some sort, right? It's some kind of art project. But you're
in the theater, Rocky III ended. The beginning of it starts off
with fucking Eye of the Tiger, which was in Rocky III. So it's
not a new song, but it's even better 'cause you've had time to learn to
love it. Right, yes, exactly. So everyone in the theater starts off with Eye of
the Tiger, and it has this cool American flag and
USSR flag. Oh, yeah. Boxing gloves that come at each other
and explode in the shittiest looking way. Well, and you notice really only the Soviet
glove explodes. Oh, yeah. That's right. The American glove stays perfectly intact. Yeah,
exactly. Only the Soviet glove explodes. Little foreshadowing. Oh,
man. And we start off and we have a montage basically of the clubber lang
fight, from Rocky 3, who was Mr. T. That's right. And Rocky Unit
and all these different cuts between the fighters and the ring and
the corner guys and then the people in the crowd. And this happened
so many times throughout the movie where he loves just bopping back and forth between
different facial expressions, pausing at weird times, freeze framing
at the end of a montage. Right. That was sort
of-- 'cause the montage fairly quickly melds into It's
so funny because they make it look like it's literally immediately after the club are
laying about and Apollo and Rocky are walking maybe into the dressing room. But it
turns out, no, no, we've moved some indeterminate amount of time ahead.
And Rocky and Apollo are getting ready to spar. They're getting ready to practice.
They've got like the little belts on with the, you know, sort of the cop
or whatever. And they've got their-- They're incredibly oiled here at this point. Yeah,
they are very wet looking. It's a little gross. And they're talking about,
you know, are we too old? Are we not too old? Or Apollo, I'm not
too old. Rocky's like, Are you sure about that, Apollo? By the way, this is
a guy who had a heart attack He has many names, right? He is Robert
Balboa, but everybody calls him Rocky. And then he's, I know that his nickname
is the Italian Stallion, but the fact that his, ostensibly his best
friend in the world, Apollo Creed,
exclusively refers to him as simply Stallion.
That's a choice. I'm not really sure what that choice says about
Rocky and Apollo, but it's a choice. I think they're hinting
at what it says about Rocky and Apollo. Fair enough. And Rocky has this incredible,
like, training outfit on, with this ridiculous cod piece and everything.
And they're circling each other, like, oh, I don't know if
you washed up, whatever. And right as they're both about to simultaneously punch
each other, it just freezes. It also looks like if those two punches landed,
you now have two unconscious men in the ring. 'Cause that is like, they are
full right hooks into each other's temples. Like, that is not--
I know Rocky supposedly, right, the whole lore of him is that he can take
any beating. Yeah. But that just looked brutal. Yeah.
So there's that. So so they do that. And that's how that little kind of
montage sparring session ends, which really seems to exist only to like remind us
that these guys are continuing to age. Apollo is retired, although he was in Rocky
three, right? He retired after the bout at the end of Rocky two, I think.
Yeah. So we're reminded that Apollo is retired. We're reminded that Rock
is the champion. Right. And that's sort of like all that exists. So now we
cut and Rocky is driving home in his Lamborghini, which I got to be honest,
Lamborghini is an awesome car make, don't get me wrong, like beautiful,
whatever, but this car looked like a Ford Fiero. I don't know why it didn't
look impressive to me. Yeah, but like, I know, you know,
supercars in the 80s looked awesome. Like if you want to see the Robin,
what is it, Robin's Ferrari from Magnum PI that drove around the world.
Like, you know, that's a great looking car, right? Like the
Testarossa. I don't want to be a basic bitch, but I like them to be
red. Yes, you know, agreed. Like, I think that just adds a lot. Or yellow.
Like, I feel like red or yellow is legit. After that, it's like too boring
and like weird. It shouldn't be black. That's lame. Yeah. Yeah, it wasn't the
cool, I mean, look, I'll take it, but it's a lame. Do you think it
was a Stallone was like, oh, I don't know if we have a Lamborghini
in the budget. We've got to pay the writer. We've got to pay the director.
We've got to pay the. It's like, I got a car at home.
I'll bring my guinea in. So he gets back to his house and he's in
this big, Mansion and everything. Oh, yeah. The life of a, of a champion
boxer and everything. And he gets in there and it's Uncle Paulie's birthday. That's right.
Yeah. And it looks like it's 11 30 at night, but it's probably like 6
15. But it is December. Right. Or at least late in the year. It's,
it's sometime late in the year. We're not 100 sure yet, but it's like,
yeah. So being dark early makes sense, but it is like pitch black.
Yeah. You get the impression it's super dark, but I do love he gets there
and Adrian, his wife is like, where have you been? And he's like, It's like,
getting punched. Yeah. It's like, there, I,
you know, look. I love the dumb guy stuff that he says. He's like
the dumb guy philosopher in all these films, which is what makes it so entertaining.
Because sometimes it works and sometimes you're just like, oh man. And I wonder,
God, how do I say this without just
alienating people left and right? What is Sylvester Stallone going for with this?
Is Rocky supposed to be, 'Cause it's been
a long time since I saw the first one, so maybe there's better explanation in
the first one. But like, is he supposed to be punch drunk in a lot
of ways? And therefore, and the fact that he takes these beatings is kind of
what makes him talk the way he talks and think the way he thinks.
Or is he like, did he start as like a sub 70 IQ and it's
just like, boxing is the only thing he can do? Yeah, I mean, it's like,
really hard to please himself. It's so dumb that it's strange. 'Cause there's no
real noticeable change in how he's talking in Rocky IV,
Rocky V versus Rocky I. No, exactly. It's not, there seems
to be a progression, but it's like, He really just is almost slurring his
words. It's like, All right, I guess that's--. What if there's a boxer that started
off already punched as much as you could be punched? Exactly. Oh, good stuff.
So yeah, so Paulie is there. It's his birthday. They've been waiting for Rock to
come home, and he does, and he's super excited. He's more excited about the birthday
than Paulie is. And I should mention too, Robert Jr. has got like a video
camcorder or something, VHS camcorder, with the brightest spotlight on
the front of it, just putting it in everybody's face. It does also appear that
that's the only light on in the house. The rest of the house is completely
dark. So then Adrian comes out with the candles, the cake
with the candles to blow them out and everything. Wait, Adrian doesn't come out with
the cake. Oh, no, that's right. Oh, my God. You go to see the cake.
So out with the cake comes this absolute dog shit robot.
Not that it was bad technology for the time, but as far as a device
in this film, that is like a season seven of ALF type decision to bring
a goddamn talking robot into the franchise. And this robot comes in,
and it looks like, you know, every drawing of every Screech's robot from Saved by
the Bell, every fictional robot. It's like a mantis head. It's almost like the grays,
the kind of alien look, you know, just very strange robot. And it's holding a
birthday cake that has a super creepy looking portrait of Paulie
in it. Yes. Like trying to be too accurate. It's like just do a cartoon
style picture of him. But yeah, this robot
is immediately in the mix, and his birthday gift is this robot. Paulie keeps saying,
oh, I wanted a Ferrari. Hey, Rock, I thought you were gonna get me a
sports car. And he's like, no, instead I got you something that you don't understand
and don't want. Would never want. Right. So there's this robot and it's like talking
to Paulie and like offering him to get him stuff or whatever. But before he
can blow out the candles on the cake that the robot brought out, little Robert
Jr. decides to for whatever reason spray whipped cream all over the cake
and in Paulie's face and everybody chuckles about it. And I would have caught a
thrashing, I think, if I'd done that. Yeah, that's so weird. That kind of good-natured
fun. Rocky's like, hey, I don't have to clean it up. I got someone to
do that for me. Right. Yeah, that was. That was wild.
And then, okay, we feel like, all right, at least we're done with the cake
part of this movie. But no, we're not.
Right. Because Adrian is in the bedroom, and Rocky comes into the bedroom carrying the
most insane cake I've ever seen in my life. The cake. It looks
like a wedding cake has a bride and groom figurine on it. Right. Who are
both in boxing gloves and they're inside a boxing ring. Yes. And he proceeds to
tell Adrian, he's like, oh, I know it's almost our ninth anniversary. Yeah,
yeah. You know the traditional ninth anniversary gift, a discreet warning
to your wife that she could be punched at any time. Like, what the
hell? My question is, was this the cake topper? Were they doing the like anniversary
from the cake topper from their wedding? Dude. But the
implications, I mean, this shows you how different 1976 is to 2025,
right? 85, but, like, I know, but if. That was the cake chopper from their
original one, sorry. I'm like, yeah, I'm playing. You're over here doing math. I don't
know. But, yeah, it was such a weird thing. And then he buys
her this watch that, like, wraps all the way up her arm. Yes. Which maybe
is an expensive watch. I'm sure it was at the time, but you just gave
her brother a robot that I'm sure costs a lot. More than 10 grand or
something. Right. I mean, and, and, and look, it is, first of all, it's the
most 80s ass looking watch I've ever seen in my life. Horrible. And also,
why does he keep calling it her prize? He keeps saying, Open your prize.
Open your prize. Your prize? Fuck. I'm a prize fighter. All I
know is prize. It almost seems like he literally doesn't know the word present.
And he's just using the word prize, 'cause that's all he understands about what a
gift can look like. Yeah. Damn idiot. Anyway, so after
Adrian and Rocky have their little moment with her watch, and she's very grateful
and everything, we cut to Apollo Creed in the pool at his house, playing with
his dogs. How fun does that look? So much fun. The dogs are jumping.
He's playing fetch with them. They're jumping in the pool and jumping back. It's like
three big, like, like Goldens or something. Really great looking dogs.
And the official dog of having a good time. Yeah, absolutely, the Golden.
Yeah, second follow up though, maybe the Labrador Retriever. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So anyway,
but he's got a little TV, a little CRT 13
inch television. Doesn't appear to be plugged into anything, doesn't have any rabbit ears on
it. But hey, it's working and it's showing like this news article, or not news
article, this news report on TV. And it's all about Ivan
Drago and the Russians are finally coming to America, they're gonna participate,
in professional boxing for the first time. This is obviously back in the Cold War,
the USSR, everything. And they were participating in the Olympics back then. But there
was always a lot of question marks about, you know, whether they were doping or
what kind of training programs that the Soviets were using. So lots of open questions.
But we see information about both Ivan Drago and his wife, whose name
I forget, but played by Bridget Nielsen, Ludmila,
I think was is the character's name. But anyway, she is a gold medalist swimmer.
He is a gold medalist amateur boxer. And now he's gone coming over to join
the professional boxing ring. So this is what Apollo sees. And of course, the Russian,
the Soviet sort of manager of Drago is like, we want him to fight
the champ, Rocky Balboa, right away. That's what we want to have happen. They're coming
after Rocky. They're bringing their best guy to the US for the first time.
And we get a cool little sequence of
just showing the power of Yvonne Drago, because they have this kind of press event.
So it's basically Yvonne Drago and then 40 guys in white lab coats
with the computer system from Halloween 3, Season of the Witch.
That they had to destroy at the end.
And this part killed me too. This is another thing where it's like,
why did you say it that way? So they have this punching
measuring thing, and Drago's punching
it to show how many PSI his punches are. And his manager-promoter guy's like,
the average boxer in professional boxer has
a punch strength of 700 PSI. And then Drago throws
one punch, And it said 1,850, and he said, Drago has
an average of 1,850 PSI. It's like an average of one?
Come on, do we know anything about fucking sample sizes here? Steve and I are
both statistics guys. This made me sweat. I didn't love it, but I also didn't
love the implication that the guy is actually punching with one ton of pound per
square inch. Just give me a break. Make it more realistic. Oh, if the average
is like 807 or whatever they said, make him like 1,200. That's still super
impressive and doesn't sound ridiculous. And then like later, you know,
we'll get to it. But yeah, he's adding like 200 PS
100 every single time. It's so funny. It's so good.
But it's also, you know, they claim up and they're asked by the American press,
you know, is there any blood doping or steroid use? No, no, no, no,
no. He's completely naturally trained. Yeah. Right. Wink, wink,
nudge, nudge. And the guy says, and there's like different
very good like declarations about the Russian here. Yeah. So one of the things He's
like, whatever he hits, he destroys. Right. Yeah. Well, they also, I want
to make, because it changes later, they do call him the Siberian Express in the
news program that Apollo watched right before we
get to the train. I just want to mention it because later he has a
completely different nickname. But it is the Siberian Express, is supposedly what
he's called in that news program. Nice.
So now we cut back to the Balboa house, where Apollo
has come to talk to Rocky and Adrian. And they're chatting about Drago and
about what to do. And Apollo is basically asking Rocky, Hey man, don't fight him.
Let me fight him. They want to do an exhibition. I want to come out
of retirement, whoop this kid's ass, show everybody, I still got it, show everybody that
the Soviets ain't nothing. Let me do that. And Adrian is concerned.
She's like, Apollo, you retired five years ago. Are you sure this is a good
idea? But he is raring to go. And here we see momentarily
Paulie's interaction with his birthday gift again. It's gotten weird,
Nick. It's gotten really weird. It is weird. Because now the voice of
the robot has somehow been reprogrammed to be this, for lack of
a better word, sort of sultry female voice. It's like, hi, Paulie. Yeah.
I got your beer for you. And it's like, oh my God. I'm very uncomfortable
by all this. It is, but it's totally what Paulie's dream
of the good life would be, right? You got your sexy robot bringing
you a can of Stroh's that you're drinking out of a champagne flute. I'm trying
to say, oh my God, it's so funny. Yeah. So Rocky,
like, his getting deep with Apollo,
and he's like, oh, you sure it's him that you wanna fight? 'Cause I think
you're trying to fight you. It's funny, like, the movie would take something that's
normally an implied message of it and just punch you in the face with
it at 1,850 PSI. It's called eschewing
subtext and just having everything just on the tail. It's what you do when you're
teaching a kindergartner to read, is you put all of the subtext in so
there is none. That's what we're looking at here. We're looking at the My First
Reader version of a movie, basically. Oh my God, dude. It's so funny.
Oh, I thought a subtext was when I told my wife to pick me up
a 12-inch meatball from the sandwich shop. There we go.
So Apollo and Rocky then are watching one of their old bouts. I guess this
is something that retired boxers do is watch each other getting beat up.
And they were showing a little restraint because they weren't doing the thing where they're
just air punching while they're watching it on TV. Shadowboxing, yeah, exactly.
And they chat some more. And it's basically still Rocky kind of essentially trying to
convince Apollo that maybe it's not such a good idea. Are you sure you want
to do this? And Apollo is like, no, man. Like, I haven't given up.
You might give up. I haven't. Whatever. Then we cut to an Apollo and Drago
press conference. Right. So now it's, it's so Apollo. And in his corner are
Rocky and Duke, the trainer. And then I think Paulie might also be there.
Yeah, but definitely, like, he's got kind of his people on his side. And then
on Drago's side are his wife, Ludmila. And then he's got this manager guy whose
name I don't remember, but basically the guy who speaks better English, I think,
than, than either Drago or his wife. So he talks. It works for them a
lot. And it gets squirrely, it gets a little froggy, they get a little jumpy
with each other. It's good. I mean, Apollo Creed, what a great
character. I mean, Carl Weathers, he's the Simon Phoenix of this film,
right? Except not a psychotic. But I mean that Stallone can't,
he does not have the charisma to do this heavy lifting,
that he needs a Wesley Snipes, he needs a Carl Weathers to just come in
and he's fucking awesome. I mean, that character is so believable as like
a, the way a real guy would like act and make decisions and stuff.
And I always felt like Apollo Creed was intentionally this sort of blend
of like Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson, right? Like he was supposed to be like
Iron Mike in the first two movies where it was almost unbeatable, but he's also
got all the swagger, all the foot like a butterfly sting, like a bee swagger
of Muhammad Ali. And it's a great character. Apollo Creed's a fantastic character. But yeah.
And there's some good, yeah, there's some good back and forth, you know, and,
Drago doesn't speak during this whole time. True. So Apollo, and he's
just riffing or whatever, and they ask Drago a question, he doesn't say anything,
and he's like, the man's tongue didn't come through customs. Like, he has all
these zingers, dude. He is firing off. It's really good. It's like the original roast
comedy roast. Yeah. And then at the end of the
press conference, the last thing is that Drago rips down like a cardboard cutout of
Apollo Creed. And then it's like one of those dumb freeze frames again. And I
swear to God, We had Sylvester Stallone in real life editing this movie. It was
like, Hey, hey, hey, come see this, guys. Hey, I figured out how to
do a freeze frame. Oh, I'm gonna do a ton of these freeze frames.
I love this freeze frame. It's all over this movie. It really is. It's so
good. I also imagine him acting a little bit like, and this is a fictional
representation, but a little bit like Ron Burgundy when he's gotten his makeup on.
It's like, everybody, come look how good I look. Like, I feel like Stallone was
always just calling people into the edit bay to be like, Hey, hey, hey,
look how good this looks. Like, oh, we got-- and those are like
all the effects that would have been built in on his son's shoulder-mounted VHS camcorder,
you know, the editing functions. Oh, my God. Oh, man. So now we've
got our fight. Our first bout of the movie. Yeah, the exhibition. Yeah,
the exhibition. And Ivan Drago. We're at the MGM Grand in Las
Vegas, which is where we're gonna have this fight. And it's very interesting.
Drago's clearly not aware of what's about to happen, but he's like, like, you know,
essentially in this, like, we don't know where he is. Looks like, quote, unquote,
backstage, kind of where it looks like he is, but he is standing in a,
in a squared Circle in a ring. That ring starts rising up into
the actual Arena where this is happening while James Brown
is performing Living in America. Now, I love James. I love James Brown,
and I love the song. Yeah. Did it need to be in our movie for
three minutes and 10 seconds? I feel like Stallone is one of those guys who
might be I'm like, well, in my heart, I'm really a musician. Like one of
those guys where he's like, oh, I never cut a song off. Because I was
thinking that during all the montages in this movie, I'm like, oh, they went fully
to the whole song fading out. Yeah. And everything. I do love seeing James
Brown, although I, he probably also had to give his wife the, you might
get punched cake at some point. But during this whole scene,
it was so funny. Apollo's dance moves and the pageantry
and the fireworks and stuff, my wife She was cackling during this scene.
She had never seen the movie. She was like, oh my God. So, I mean,
this is really some good '80s to be laughed at if
nothing else. Yes, absolutely. And it really is. He performs the entire song.
When they introduced Drago, this is where I said that his name changed. They introduced
him as the Siberian Bull. And that's why there's a
huge bull behind Apollo that sort of falls apart at
one point. It's very odd and it's not real clinical. But it's because he originally
was called the Siberian Express, but then when they intro'd him, you know, like in
this corner, the Von Drago, the Siberian Bull, or whatever, and they call him the
Siberian Bull. Yeah. That's why there's a big bull head behind the stage that,
like, collapses and falls apart, which looks dumb as hell. Also...
Apollo had, like, 90 nicknames when they're in. They did. One of which,
by the way, I'd love to just take a quick second to ask you your
opinion on. The Count of Monte Fisto?
That sounds like one of the joke porno titles they would come up with in
Clerks 2. It sounds like something Dirty Randy and Raffi did in the league,
to me, is what it sounds like. It's really pornographic. Like,
it's-- I don't know why that is. The account of Monty Fisto. That's so bad.
But he was also like, you know, a few other names. And Rock even says
something to him, like, you, got enough nicknames? You know, like, whatever. Yeah, yeah.
But, yeah. And the way that everyone looked was, They all
had these American flag stuff. And then Apollo's crew, who was in
his corner, were wearing red, white, and blue Hugo Boss t-shirts.
Hugo Boss sweatshirts. Notable designer of the uniforms for people who are fighting against
the USSR. So I think that worked out well.
It certainly was accurate. Not as much
white or blue in those outfits. A little bit of red. A little bit of
red on the shoulders on the upper arm. But yeah. Here we get Ivan
Drago's first line. The fight's about to start and they do the
glove thing. So Creed sees that he can't smash his gloves,
you know, when they do the glove fist bump thing, he hits his gloves down
and his arms do not move. So he's like, oh, and Drago gives us a
nice, you, will lose. You will lose. Oh my God. And the
announcer, you know, I can't get over the size of this Russian. These things that
they're saying are so funny. And he is, he's huge. And Carl Weathers is not
a small man and Drago's still a head taller than him. I mean, that's really,
you know. They do a smart job of not giving us actual height-weight stats,
which I think is very, very brilliant, because someone else would look
up Sylvester Stallone height and weight, and it would blow this movie away for them.
Yeah. So the bout happens. Apollo and Drago
are fighting, and it starts off. Apollo's doing a lot of dancing around and kind
of being really floating and kind of whatever, and he did a little jab-jab,
you know, doing all this kind of stuff. And it was like, by the end
of the first round, Drago has landed a few punches that clearly show he's not
taking this like an exhibition. Yeah. It actually gets to the point where the corner's
clear to like separate the boxers and stuff. And basically in
between rounds, Apollo's already cut. He's bleeding, but he says to Rocky,
he's like, you don't throw that towel. And no matter what happens, you don't throw
in that towel. And so, you know, I think within a few rounds
here, like Rocky's holding the towel, kind of like thinking about whether
he should throw it in and he doesn't. And Odd Drago just, I mean,
good. God, it's like-- this is very brutal. For a PG movie. Yes.
Incredibly disturbing. This is after the PG-13 rating had been
invented. We'd already had PG-13 movies. 13 movies come out in 1984. So the fact
that this was a PG is an interesting choice, I guess, because it's, quote,
sports, right? Yeah, right. Yeah. Sports violence is different. But, man,
this is very graphic. And then again, some great work by director Sylvester
Stallone cutting back and forth between the various faces, including horrifyingly,
Apollo's poor wife in the crowd, who had shown earlier, like, meeting Drago's wife,
who was being cordial. I mean, that was, like, not a Sinister thing. Good luck.
Yeah. But Jesus. So Apollo, that final
blow is really, really rough, and he just falls straight down on
his face. Clearly knocks him out cold when he gets the hit. So when he
falls, there's no, he doesn't, you know, stop himself or whatever. Everybody rushes into the
ring and is, like, trying to give him air and, like, whatever. And Drago
kind of looks over at one point and catches Rocky's eye, and Drago says,
if he dies, he dies. It's very, very good
stuff. Really important screenwriting there by Sylvester Stallone. I would
love the outtakes of this movie, just the times. Where Dolph Lundgren's like,
if he dies, he's-- I'm sorry, guys. I forgot my line.
He has one line every 15 minutes in this movie.
No, doctorate in chemistry holding Dolph Lundgren did not
screw up his lines, I assure you. I think it's a chemistry doctor. It's something
like that. It is really funny that in real life, Dolph Lundgren is the
smart guy, and he's probably the one who's the natural athlete, and Stallone
is onroids to look like Rocky. In real life. And he's the dumb guy.
Yes. It's pretty funny. So we cut to something that
we love here on Two Dads, One Movie. Seems to happen all the time.
But a funeral, and again, yet again, a funeral. It's Carl Weathers'
funeral again. We've seen this before. Carl, man. We're Carl, man.
We need a movie where Carl Weathers lives. Not anytime soon.
So we're at Apollo's funeral.
Sorry about that. And then, It's basically just like,
I mean, it's a pretty standard funeral scene and, you know, Rocky's kind of talking
to Apollo, Apollo's remains or whatever,
and, you know, talking about how he's gonna like make it up to him basically,
right, is what's happening there. Yeah. And immediately,
you know, the media, we're getting kind of a combination of
like the spinning newspaper magazine articles. Little bit of a montage. Press conferences.
Another montage, geez. And it's a combination of
Rocky being blamed for what happened to Apollo and then the speculation of like,
well, Rocky's He's gonna fight Drago now. Yeah, Drago wants Rocky. And it's because he
did in the first place. Right, they specifically mentioned that basically
the, it basically talks about US the boxing authorities. I don't know if this is
supposed to be like IBC, WBC, the WBA, like whoever it is, but like wherever
Rocky's belt is with his title, because there's multiple boxing organizations,
right? So whatever it is, they're saying they're not gonna sanction any fight with Drago
in it after what happened. Like Drago is basically not welcome to fight in the
United States. Yeah. And certainly not professionally and efficiently. I mean, good for them
for being moral, as always. Right. You always trust large sporting
organizations to do the right thing. So Rocky then basically gives up
his title. He gives it up completely in order to be able to fight Drago,
which makes no sense whatsoever, but he does agree to that.
And so a lot of the headlines are all about Rocky giving up the title
and whatever. And then we cut to another press conference.
Yes. So now we've got, They got Rocky with Duke and Polly with him.
And then Drago with his wife and his manager. And they're sitting there talking about
Rocky and Drago fighting. And they ask Rocco,
what wins the fight? He goes, December 25th in Russia. Why on
Christmas Day? That's when I was told it would be. That's it. He apparently
had no influence, no input. Just go be here on Christmas to fight. And it's
like-- Because that's the thing that happens. You have leverage in that situation. You're not
a coward if you can't make it across the world on the most important,
like family day of the year in your country. Super strange.
I like the banter again at this stuff where they were kind of talking about,
well, your country does this, whatever. So everyone's like saying stuff back and forth.
And one of Drago's person says something about like, well, you're violent government.
And then Paulie was like, Hey, well, you call my government,
that's one last straw now. I'm not gonna take this. I don't know,
Paulie. Yeah, I know, right? Like, look, no, no, I don't think the Soviets had
a lot of leg to stand on when it came to calling governments violent,
but that doesn't mean it's also, yeah. This was, I mean,
This whole movie was basically two of the same things going at
each other. So Rocky had just agreed
with this. And now arriving back at the house, not in
a Lamborghini, but in a Nissan 300Z. Is that what it was?
Is Adrian. Hell of a car, beautiful car,
but it's not a multi six-figure sports car.
It's not Italian, is I think the point. I mean, it's like getting a boxing
cake and a wraparound watch instead of a robot. So there's
all this press at her house, and she finds out that Rocky had just agreed
agreed without asking her. Do they not have a gate to their
driveway? 'Cause they're literally on their property, all of them. There's like 30 different people.
They're all yelling, why is Rocky doing this? What's happening?
Are you going to Moscow too? And she's like, I don't know what you're talking
about. I know, they're very accessible. Let me get my shotgun. I'm gonna stand my
ground with you people. I get the fuck off my property. It's ridiculous. It'll zoom
out and it's just like the crappy Philadelphia neighborhood he grew up in with that
house. I wanna stay in the old neighborhood. I bought two
apartment buildings and kicked out 17 families so I could build this place, you know,
like a real Philadelphian. Anyway. And Rocky had, wait,
back to the 300Z real quick. When he pulled in, there was a scene where
he was like kind of washing his Lamborghini when Apollo called him earlier. And then
there was like a red, another Lamborghini or Ferrari in the background. Yeah. So he
had a backup sports car. And he has to have his. Well, that's for Robert
Jr. Someday. He's nine now. You'll keep washing that'll be yours someday.
Exactly. So, yeah, I mean, shitty husband work
by Rocky. I think, and I wrote down this, at this point in the film,
Rocky is the villain. Yeah. He's the guy that failed to save his friend's
life during an exhibition. Could have thrown the towel. If you and I were playing
pickup basketball at 24 Hour Fitness and I saw you having a heart attack,
I'd be like, well, Steve told me he didn't want to be subbed till the
fourth quarter. Like, come on, man. Like, that's not being a good friend.
And then he just makes this decision against his wife's will. Not even
telling her. He couldn't even know what her will is. Now, look, I'll tell you
what, Any wife's answer would be, Fuck no, don't do that. But he didn't even
tie her. Oh, you killed your friend doing the same thing? Fuck is wrong
with you? So they're having a conversation, right? So he gets home, he walks in,
and Adrian's like at the top of the stairs, and he's like, starts up the
stairs, but basically they're having this conversation where he's at the bottom of the stairs
and she's at the top. And it's, he's basically, she's like, why do you have
to do this? And he goes, oh, no. He doesn't need to do this.
Like, there's no reason. There's nothing compelling him to do it. Like, I am not
usually one of the people that's like, oh, like the wet blanket in the
movie that has to to, you know, that tries to tell the adventurer and to
not go on the adventure. I side with the wet blanket. No, I do here.
Yeah. Like, I'd rather not have the movie and let Rocky continue to, like,
be the father that his son needs, sort of, because he's probably a father,
too, but whatever. But it's, like, so dumb that his reasons for having, for having
to needing to do this fight make no sense at all. I cannot
believe. I think. I think I lose so much respect for Adrian later when she
shows up in Russia. I know if she had just watched the match from home
and been like, like, with a double frickin tumbler of whiskey and
a frickin cigarette. Like, I would be so much more respect for Adrian. And you
could even show her at home, like, getting excited and getting behind him on TV
and spending Christmas with her kids. Don't co-sign this bullshit. Like, you know what I
mean? It's crazy. Adrian, definitely not a wet blanket. She's a blanket of reasonableness that
Rocky is avoiding. He's refusing to sleep with that blanket. It's ridiculous.
So Rocky needs to go do some thinking. Right, so. The only way he
can. So he gets into his music video. So we have another montage
here. And he gets into his Lamborghini, which has a vanity plate because
he's a notably a left-handed fighter. That's right. But you can't fit the entire world,
the entire word, Southpaw, on a license plate. So it says,
Softpaw. Just say S-T-H-P-A-W. You can
do fewer letters. You fucking idiot. You also could have done S-O-U-T-H-P-A. And I
feel like it would have worked better, Southpaw, right? You know, like, But he does
have a lot of cars, so maybe I'll have some fun. Well, that'd be even
worse thing, 'cause then it should be sthpaw1, sthpaw2. That's true, right? It should be,
but yeah, anyway. No, one more reason that Rocky's not smart. But yeah, we get,
I see I did the math here, a four minute and
26 second long music video of him just driving around and thinking about Apollo and
thinking about Drago and driving around and thinking about Apollo and running on
the beach and hugging in the surf. The Apollo hugs are so fucking weird.
It really, like, look, it's clear these guys were in love and that's fine,
but I wish I wish the movie was more explicit about it. Because he's clearly
a-- He just said. That to Adrian, where he's like, Look, I love Apollo
in a way that you couldn't understand. And it could even
just be sports love or whatever on the screen. Who cares? Could be the Ryan
song kind of thing, right? Maybe. But, yeah, but he's
clearly thinking about Apollo a thousand times for every one time he thinks about Adrian.
It's pretty wild, yeah. So, yes, we have that. And then we cut
next to Rocky, basically saying goodbye to Robert Jr. Just like, Hey, I gotta go
do this. I won't be here for Christmas because I'm an idiot, you know,
whatever. But of course, he can't actually say goodbye to Adrienne. He sort of waves
to her. She's up in the window, 'cause she's pissed off as well she should
be. But he gets into the cab or whatever to go to the airport.
And then we cut to them arriving in the USSR.
So this part, I think, is where kind of,
if you don't care that much about the plot or the Rocky movie, you could
start here. This is like 48 and a half minutes in. When the plane lands
in Russia, and we got the, In the burning hot, like this 80s shit playing.
And it's like, this is kind of its own separate movie because we get the
chunk of him preparing for the Drago fight. Because also, for the
rest of the time, there's not that much mention of Apollo. Apollo was kind of
left behind in the US. And I would say, if you're not that into the
plot, good news, it's done. The plot's over at this point. There is no more
plot. Now there's just a fight. There's a training, and then there's a fight,
and that's it. And so we are treated to, oh,
I love Paulie. He like slips and falls in the snow at one point,
but he's wearing a jacket that he clearly has just pinned like a don't tread
on me flag on the back. Holy shit. Oh, on the don't tread on
me real tip real quick. This is pretty funny. So there's a
guy, there's a guy in my neighborhood who has this big don't tread on me
flag on a fence in front of his house and whatever. I don't
care. He's a nice guy. I don't like being tread upon. But he built it,
the flag is on a fence that the HOA made him build.
Oh. Oh, so the HOA made him build it. So he tried upon by Barb
and Carol of the HOA, but just not any tyrannical guys. So I love that,
like, I will shoot a rocket launcher at the government, but also,
yeah, these ladies can make me build stuff in front of my house. It sounds
like that flag should be altered slightly with the word please with a question mark
at the end. Yeah. Don't tread on me, please. Like, maybe that would be better.
Tread on me, it's the only way I can get an erection. Maybe tread on
me, daddy. But yeah, I love Polly. And I
do love Paulie being like, oh, I really gotta stick it to these Russians.
And he did that. So I wrote that down, too. That was super
funny. And then Duke is kind of, they have these,
the guy who takes them to the house is kind of like, Look,
this has everything you asked for. And it's this frozen pipes,
ice-encrusted cabin in the beautiful
setting. It's like an ice palace. It's like an ice palace or something, although that's
not close to Moscow. So I don't know where the hell. They are, but I
know it looks like there's no, like, there's nothing near it. Right.
And then he's also pointing to this Mercedes, which has these two
shady characters who are like his KGB handlers who are gonna be following him everywhere.
Well, Hugo, they go. Yeah. Here we get a little bit
of Christmas, all right? Okay. We've got the Chipmunks Christmas song
playing inside the cabin while Duke is playing chess against one of the Russian guys.
That's right, yeah. Duke checkmates him just to show a. Little, It seems like that
it's actually like there is this man who seems like maybe he's the owner of
the farm they're on that's being co-opted to put them in. That's who I think
he's playing. It's the guy lives there. He was the one chopping firewood when they
first showed up. Yeah, right. So I think he's the one, 'cause I think the
dudes in the car just like, I don't know, I guess they stay in the
car. Like, I don't know how that works. They freeze to death, but whatever.
Asking way too many questions about this movie. But yeah, so we
pretty quickly get to the first of the training montages then, 'cause there's actually two
in Russia. And I forgot that when this started. It's the
serious thing. It's totally another, he's in the edit. Bay, oh, I got these two
training. Montages and I love them both. I don't know what to do. So this
first one is not, it's a song that is just music. For the first
time we get this big montage and it's not like a Papa Rock song.
It's just like the score, but it is over three and a half minutes
long. I got 336, I think I got. It's crazy. So that's him. And it
is neat though. This is one of the pieces I really love and appreciate about
this movie is showing that Rocky is performing like the same moves
in exercise and training that Drago is. But Drago's are all like these complicated Nautilus
equipment and things that are hooked up to machines. And Rocky's doing stuff like lifting
carts or using an ox, you know, like whatever.
Yeah, doing all this kind of stuff. It's like he has to do it more,
quote, naturally, right? This is also this training montage where we do see that Drago
is getting injections of something and we have to assume those are anabolic steroids.
There's no other implication that he is on steroids and Rocky,
of course, totes clean. Oh, natural. Totes clean. You know what's very interesting is
during this whole scene, and maybe I'm wrong and I missed it, but I don't
think I did, you don't see him eating at all.
Yeah. You don't see anything that involves like his training meals. 'Cause that
was a big thing in the early movies of him cracking eggs. And the raw
eggs and stuff. Yeah, yeah. Interesting. You're right. Not a single. What is he eating?
Yeah. You know, beef. I don't know. It's just beef jerky. But I do love,
like, this. This always killed me, you know, and the cuts back and forth.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And how it would be the exact same motion. At one point,
Drago is sparring, and every time he punches his sparring partner,
Rocky chops into a tree with an ax. So punch, chop, punch,
chop, punch, chop. And then the guy. The guy gets knocked out, and then the
tree starts falling over, and that was probably still. I'll be like, oh, you know,
it's actually pretty deep if you think about it. Yeah. That was the only part
of it I really didn't like because I felt like it was too on the
nose. I was kind of small movie. I'm like, it's on the nose and probably
up the nose, if we're going to be honest. Yes. I'm sure plenty of
that $10 million disappeared up Sly's nostrils.
Then we cut to, oh, so wait, so that training montage sort of ends after
over three and a half minutes. Yeah. And Adrian arrives. So now Adrian's in Russia
and there's a little, like, read, I missed you. I missed you too. But that's
basically Not very emotional. No. And even when he first looked at her,
he kind of had the look of like, oh great, my biggest hater. Right.
Yeah, exactly. The old ball and chain. So now, but now
she's getting involved in the train because this is when he does the thing with
like the ox cart and lifts it, which like, I don't know, that's a fulcrum.
Like, is that really that hard to lift? There's three people in it. I don't
know. It didn't seem, I don't know. But this one is actually, so this is
the part. I love this song. This is like a five minute long, but this
is heart on fire. Oh my gosh. Best song in the movie. Fantastic song.
This is literally, I have a couple of playlists on Spotify that are all about
songs from movies, you know, specifically. And this is like a
major one that's on there because Hearts on Fire is just a great 80s rock
song. Really fantastic. And again, another this time a little
over four minutes. I got four, four, maybe 4 10, something like that. So,
you know, in just the last few minutes, we've got almost 10 minutes of
just training one time. Yeah, right. But it's basically done
after that. Like, the music ends and the training montage is done.
But Jesus, it's so much. It's crazy. And at this point, like probably
we've had 10 minutes of training montage. We probably had 10 minutes of flashback montage.
Yeah, yeah. Like, it's really for a short movie for a 90 minute. And then,
like, on the Drago Apollo bout probably took at least six or seven out after
the James Brown music video. Like, like, with the actual fight. Like that
one is another. Exactly. So, yeah. And some of the things during this scene,
one thing is that it does keep showing Drago increasing the PSI of
his punches. And I think the highest I thought I saw it read was 2,450,
which is now, you know, we're approaching like four times the strength
of the average heavyweight boxer. So, and again,
over a metric ton now, we've actually gone further than just an imperial
ton. We're now over a metric ton of pressure. Give me a break. That's the
only ton that they care about. I guess that's Russians. So then one of
the other things, I think the end of this montage is Rocky's, he's jogging.
Yes. And he's jogging so fast that the KGB handlers like crash
their Mercedes and they get in like an Austin Powers type situation between snowbanks.
And then he sprints to the top of this mountain and starts screaming,
Drago, bro. Snow, that is,
yes, you have snow boots on, which also must be hard to run, and it's
probably part of the point, right? Makes it harder to run, so it's good,
you know. But what if you slipped at all? What if you slipped even 20
feet? You gotta fight a fight. What are you doing? Get the fuck off the
mountain, you idiot. Yeah, and he still has to come down, which is probably more
dangerous. Well, I'm just gonna jump. I heard that the town in
Russia where that actually happened, there's like 40 people, the population
in the town, and they asked, oh, do you want us to put a rocky
statue at the top of that mountain? Like, I don't know, our town's had a
lot going on. I don't think it's really worth commemorating. That's right.
I also think it was when he was filming this Stallone, you know,
because obviously there's a camera and a helicopter, right, filming him on top of this
thing. And I think it's while he was up there, he was thinking to himself,
oh, man, what if I slipped? And the beginning of Cliffhanger was born.
That's how it ended up. Ended up happening. Bring that camera up
here. He, he, he did like a little,
he did a little promo of Cliffhanger while he was doing this. Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. So. So, yeah, I love the chaperone crash. That's a great one, too,
because it's just so dumb because they've got chains on their car. They're. They're used
to driving in the snow, but he just, like, slips them and, like, goes down
a little other direction, and they just slide out. It's so.
And then the guy gets out of the car and starts chasing him on foot.
It's like, he's. What's he gonna do on that mountain?
Like, he has to come down. You know where he's staying. Also, you're wearing floor
shimes. Like, stop. Like, you have, like, patent leather shoes on. Like, knock it off.
Like, you're not going anywhere. Dude. Yum. But we are mercifully
through all this stuff and we're now at Christmas Day. Yes. Time for
the bout. We're in the full arena here.
There's media from around the world. They've all got their signs. We can see that
there's a ton of interest internationally in this.
There's a VIP seating section with the Russian brass
and he's not mentioned by name, but we do have our second Two Dads,
One Movie appearance of Mikhail Gorbachev, who we saw in the Naked Gun episode
as well. The Naked Gun and now Rocky IV and we'll see how many more.
This isn't even just mentions of him. This is like literally an actor representing Mikhail
Gorbachev, which is hilarious. No, there's a prominent stain in this one. I think they--
you- know what's funny though? The way they shot him was always from his right
and slightly below. So it's like you wouldn't see that part
of his head. There's always kind of the left, just above the forehead, was sort
of where Mikhail Gorbachev's birthmark, famous birthmark is. So the way they shot this character,
he was clearly referred to him as the party chairman or party secretary. The general
secretary. General secretary, there you go. And so we recognize that's who it's supposed to
be, but they don't, you don't ever see the part of his head where the
birthmark would be. Yeah, yeah. It's a very interesting choice, very, very deliberate to choose
to shoot him that way. Do you think he had the same agent as like
John Elway? Remember they'd have those like the Tecmo Super Bowl game or whatever,
but then John Elway isn't really in there because he wasn't licensed
as a player even though all the other ones were. Like, I wonder if Gorby
had the same representation. I think he just took out international trademark
on that smear, you know, that birthmark. So anybody used it had to pay him
a royalty. Guilty. But, yeah, I do remember. Welcome to John Elway's
quarterback. Yeah, he had his own game.
Yeah. Okay, so, yeah, this it.
Polly says a very weird thing to him again. I do.
I do like the movie showing an attempt of dumb guys, like, trying to,
like, bare their souls to each other. Be emotional and. And trying to be
as real as possible, because there's something very Charming about. About that. So Paulie's saying,
as him and rock are, you know, walking out to the fight, and he's
like. He's like, you know, rock, I'm not very good at saying stuff like this,
but if I could just unzip myself and step out and be somebody else,
I think I'd want to be you. It's like, very sweet. It's a terrifying
thing. If I could just take my human skin suit off and if
you're a great big fat person, I could. Hey, Rocky, would you me?
I'd me.
Hey, I got strong by pulling a bucket full of lotion up and down
this pulley. Oh my God. It's good stuff.
But then they get out to the ring and they have to meet Drago
and they go in the middle of the ring and Rocky, he is a lot
smaller and that is the character. The character is meant to be not as big,
not as fast, not as strong as his opponents, but he can take every beating
in the world, right? And Paulie kind of turns and goes, Hey, you know that
thing I said about wanting to Never mind.
Drago is huge. And there's a long, you know, there's a Living
in America length sequence here where it's showing, you know,
the Russian national anthem. And it is funny that it's like, oh my God,
how creepy and propagandistic is it that everyone has to stand up and salute their
country before this sporting event. Like, oh, these look at these fucking weirdos.
Never in a democracy. And Drago now, I think,
delivers there's his, like, third line of the movie before it starts. Something like that.
Steve, you're. I'm not even gonna try. You're the man. I must break you.
Good line. It's a good line. It is a good one. It's definitely Drago's best
line. Not that there are many to choose from. He could have had all of
his lines for the whole movie written on his hands. That's wild. Easily.
Yeah. So we get into the action and we actually get a full round
one. We're not in Montage mode yet. We get a full three minutes of which.
Makes it feel, I think it's effective because it,
with how many rounds there are, it gives you a real sense of like,
oh, this is going on fucking ever. When you
hear that boxing, and this is something that I've never watched a ton of boxing,
but I've obviously seen, you know, professional bouts and watch on TV and stuff.
I'm never a huge fan, but like, every time I think about the fact that
a boxing round is three minutes, it's a common, I think, I think round length
doesn't sound like a lot of time. And then you watch two men hit each
other for three minutes and you go, dude. God damn, this is literally forever.
This is literally lasting forever. How are they doing this? To then
do it 15 times, you know? The thing that I always relate to the length
of boxing matches, 'cause I would think the same thing. I'd be like, oh,
three minutes is not bad. It's like, recall every time I've tried to dance
at a wedding. Did I make it three minutes into the
song, or was I huffing and puffing over by the punch bowl by the end
of it? Yeah, for sure. So in round one, Like Rocky
is just getting the shit beat out of him. He's taking it. I think he
gets knocked down 700 times during this. Is there no TKO? Cause I don't know
boxing that well, but I always thought that if you were knocked to the mat,
like off your feet on the mat, three times during
the course of about, that was a technical knockout. I think it's three and a
round. Oh, is it three and a round? Okay, see, that's what I don't know
boxing well enough to know, but if that makes more sense, cause he definitely gets
hit to the mat way more than three times. But yeah, I don't think we
were ever shown three in a round. Right. You know what though,
that does prove that you're a good guy because you do not watch boxing on
TV. That's true. I'm not a scumbag. Do we have to include this movie
in that because that scumbag Robert Jr. Is watching boxing on TV. Scumbag son
and that creep robot are watching boxing on TV. Oh my
God. So yeah, I mean Rocky
and Adrian's already crying here. So Rocky's been knocked down in the first round.
Adrian's already already like, what the. Well, because she just watched Apollo die not long
before in the exact same situation. And then, you know, the second round,
Rocky takes like 50, 2500 PSI face. Right?
Yes. Which should crush your skull. I don't
know. Like, I I don't know, like, what it would. Would have some
effect, for God's sake. Horrific. And he's getting the absolute crappie out of him.
But again, we're show being shown, like, mostly this. Round. Towards the
end of the round though, Rocky turns the tables and he's able to catch him
in the eye and cut him on the eye. And this is important because never
during the Apollo Creed fight and obviously not to this point in Rocky's fight,
did we see him cut at all? He never seemed to get any kind of
injury from any of his sparring or training or anything. So like Drago is not
used to bleeding it seems. Right. And they do make a big deal about that.
But from the second round on, it's a lot of
blur. There's just, there's just, there's a, we go through a lot of rounds and
it's a lot of the same stuff. It's I punch you, you punch me,
I punch you, you punch me. There's a whole bunch of back and forth.
Both men are really getting beat up. But, you know, Rocky is Rocky, so he's.
He's like, whatever. I. Drago is telling, you know, his trainer
or whatever is kind of yelling at him, and he goes, like, he's not the.
He said in Russian, but it's subtitles. Something along the lines of, like, he's not
a man. He's, like, made of iron or something like that, or he's made of.
He's made a machine. Yeah, something like that. Eventually, to the point where the
crowd starts cheering for Rocky, which seems.
More than a little unrealistic, even given this remarkable
performance. Totally. Yeah. We've spent most of our life around die-hard
sports fans. They're not easy to sweat. No, not, and especially when you're talking nationalistically.
When you get to the Olympics, the World Cup, things where there's like, you know,
country honor on the line, it gets even worse. You don't easily switch.
And, you know, sometimes you do see the switch in an instance where
their guy He's obviously fighting dirty. If Drago had thrown
a fistful of unidentifiable powder into Rocky's
eyes at some point in the fight, that would be a reason to turn on
him. So if he was a literal WWF villain, then that
would have worked. But this is just a strong lead from Bloodsport.
Here's the thing. It's an honest bout between these two fighters,
and one Drago is clearly winning. If this goes to decision,
it's Drago by a mile, right? And they even say that Duke even says,
So what is that? You know, because at one point we cut and we actually
get close to Rocky and in between rounds and he asks
Duke, he's like, what round is it? He goes, 15th, last one. You got to
knock him out or you lose. Yeah. And it's the absolute truth. Like the way
boxing scoring works, Drago's landed probably 10 times the number of punches.
Knocked him down. Knocked him down. Exactly. So on decision, this is a no brainer
Drago win. So Rocky's one sort of chance to beat Drago
is a knockout in the 15th round. Yeah. And in the meantime, like the Russian
brass is obviously they're getting pissed, right? So they're whispering each other and, and,
and Gorbachev sends somebody down. Well, it's the manager guy.
It's the manager that came to the US. He goes to, he goes to yell
at him. Yep. And he's basically in Drago's face. And then Drago does a move
I really love. Yeah, yeah. Is he kind of choke picks him up by the
neck with his boxing glove on. Right. And holds him out. I mean, imagine that's
a tough move there. And, really cool to see him him,
like, and he's just kind of like, I don't, I fight to win for me.
I'm not fighting for this, kind of like, I'm not fighting for the mother Russia
or any of this. And the reason that Ivan Drago was not in Rocky five
is because he was sent immediately to the glue Factory and, yeah, and put,
put out to pasture by the glue, the Soviet, the glue log. Yeah. The Soviet
General Party or whatever did not like Drago's performance here,
and he is gone. Yeah. So sorry to let you know, but, yeah. So we
get out into the 15th round and there's, you know, it starts off kind of
similar where, you know, Rocky's taking punches. Rocky's taking But he starts
turning around. He's getting body blows in on, on Drago, into the gut, into the
kidney, into the gut, you know, whatever. And then it's, you know, couple of,
like, I think it's like a really big right hook or, no, it's, it's several,
right? It's like right hook, right hook, right hook. And then I think he gets
someone with the left. Yeah. And that's what actually puts Drago on the, on the
mat. And the, and he counts him out. Counts him out. You know,
it's kind of interesting the way that the drama is handled here because Like by
the time we're on the last fight and by the time Rocky kind
of turns it around in the second round, we're like, all right, we know what's
going to happen here. Right. Well, it's a Rocky. So it's hard to it's hard
to kind of make it seem dramatic. I don't know what would have been real
satisfying for the Russian to get like maybe if he got knocked unconscious or
something because it was kind of one of those because that's not really how it
works out. Like if you don't watch boxing on TV like me, if you're not
a piece of shit like me, like it's not a guy just getting knocked out.
Out on the ground for three, you know, 10 seconds. So they're
normally stumbling around, whatever. But I was a little unsure at this point. I'm like,
oh, is he getting back up or not? But it also what didn't feel suspenseful.
I was just kind of like, can I be done watching this? Yeah. So this
is a thing, like, as an example, this is the kind of thing that a
lot of people, you know, complain about, like, like soccer,
the ending of soccer games, right? Where it's like, you don't
know exactly when the ending's coming because only the referee is keeping the actual time.
And so there's always, like, extra time added, and it's never exact. It's always like,
you know, so you're waiting for the, the bell to ring, but you don't know
how much activity is going to happen. Another goal could be scored,
who knows? The 1980 Miracle on Ice, the US versus Russia, there was several
goals scored, but the climactic victory of that game
is a countdown of the clock, right? Because they were up and so they were
just waiting to make sure, counting on the time to make sure the Russians didn't
score again. So there is this thing where it's not like, I feel like
baseball has the easiest moment that
you can do right when you hit a home run to win the game kind
of thing. A basketball over time. Yeah, basketball with like the last second,
you know, half court shot, things like that. But, you know, games that don't have
like sudden death or where the regulation is like, you know, based on the clock
running out, it is a little strange. So yeah, he gets this great, great punch
and he knocks him down and he counts him out and that's it. And the
whole crowd is cheering for him, which again, I don't
buy. I just don't buy it. They might cheer just for like the competition.
It's a great route, right? They also just watch the great route. They cheer just
like, Hey, this was fair and square. These guys both
leaving it all in the ring. Like we can applaud that. That's okay. We can
cheer that. But yeah, it was weird. And so at this point,
it was like the movie, it changed a couple times
because we're done now. Gorbachev has this look on his face like he's gonna have
several people killed, right? He's like, no, this is an embarrassment to my
entire career. Entire country. And then Rocky is
immediately, like, after getting punched in the head repeatedly for. Yeah. However many
minutes, like, an hour straight. 45 minutes worth of fighting time,
right? Yeah. Oh, my God. And then he comes out and he gives, like,
a three minute speech at the end. And it's, again, great, smart guy,
dumb guy stuff. I also love that it's one of those moments in movies happens
all the time where, like, a person will say something where the translator present and.
Speak for, like, you know, 50 words. And then the translation
is like, dude. And that's it. Like, one little type.
Yes, exactly. Yeah, that was really funny. So he's giving the
speech, and he's just basically, you know, he's got the translator. He's like, I can
change. You can change. We can all change.
Does not mention Apollo at all. Nope. Nope. This was for Apollo.
Nope. He gets a standing ovation. Ovation,
okay, from the crowd, including a standing ovation from Gorbachev, right from the Soviet
Union, who then, you know, allows all the other Russian brass to stand up and
stuff. But the last thing that he says in this movie,
very appropriately, is, My son watching at home should
be going to bed. Merry Christmas. I love you. So there you go.
Christmas movie. Oh, my God. It's not even a movie. And that's the end.
And that's the end of Rocky IV. Yes, it is.
That is the end of Rocky IV. Okay, so you
picked this one and I really want to hear your take before I give mine.
So talk to me about it, man. What's your take on this? So I don't
know. I think your enjoyment of this film depends a lot on what you expect
to get from it. Right? Like if you go to a super fancy restaurant,
you spend like 75 bucks on a cocoa van or some
like super, you know, some artistic, some very technical dish or whatever,
you expect a certain thing. But if you go somewhere and they're like, Oh,
they got carne asada fries for 8.50.
This is a decent plate of carne asada fries, this movie. I think
this movie, it actually kind of follows
the trajectory of a Rocky fight. Me, as the audience,
am Rocky, okay? Early in the film, I'm taking some
punches, dude. This robot knocked the fucking wind out of me. I was like,
I don't know if I can keep going. And there's different parts and parts I
feel like maybe I'm coming back a little. I like Apollo. Like this. Oh,
this was really cheesy. This caught me in the eye. But then by the end,
you're feeling, like, powerful and everything. So I think this is super fun. Don't take
this seriously. This is not anything to base your life on or to, you know,
get any kind of real artistic fulfillment from. But I will say it is a
hell of a lot of fun. And the 80s ness is so freaking fun.
Yeah, that's true. Like, the montages are very funny. There's a lot to
pick and choose from them. This is a decent one to have on in the
background while you're just kind of bullshitting. With your friends, you know? Could be,
yeah, I can see it. I think it could work in that sense. But if
you haven't seen Rocky 4, that's your choice and I respect
it. So I'm gonna go ahead and give Rocky 4 in the sense of it
being like a decent dish of carne asada fries. I'm giving it a three and
a half out of five. Three and a half.
That is a score that you have given.
Okay, so my thing about Rocky 4, so I
had actually seen Rocky 4 maybe four or five years ago. I drugged it back
up, just kind of like, oh, I've seen Rocky 4 in forever. Watch it.
And at the time, you know, it was enjoyable in the sense that, like,
I, I, it was fairly short, and I finished the movie not feeling like that
was a waste of time necessarily. Nothing like that. But I noticed at that time,
like, man, there was a lot of, like, how much actual, like, movie was in
this? Because there's a lot of montages, a lot of, like, just driving around an
entire pop song or rock song plays. Like, this is just kind of weird,
you know? So I was really paying attention to that this time. And my contention
is that not only is this not a Christmas movie, it's It's not really a
movie. It is two boxing matches and four music videos
loosely tied together with a little bit of plot. So I
went ahead and looked back through some of my other ratings to sort of like
ground where I actually feel this one should live. And there is a movie that
I have one rating I regret. I don't know if I've mentioned this to you,
Nick, but I do regret one rating I gave. And that is when I look
back at my take on They Live, I was very harsh on it
as being not enough movie not enough plot, not enough happening. And I gave it
a two out of five. And if I could go back and change my rating
on they live, I would. I think I would be more like a three and
a half is where I would be on that movie. But for, but based on
the fact that I gave it a two and thinking about like why I gave
that score to it, I am giving a one and a half out of five
to Rocky of four. I'm not a fan. I thought I was.
My, my memories are a fan. Yeah. Seeing this at eight
or nine was great, but It is kind of a dogshit movie
as far as movies go, in my opinion. Totally. You do get, I get the
one and a half is mostly because the James Brown music video part of it
is actually fantastic. I love the song Hearts on Fire. It's a fantastic song that
I actively choose to listen to on several playlists I have.
And the final bout and the thing with Drago, it's a good filmed
fictional boxing match. It is fun. So there are pieces of it.
Each of those things is worth about a half a point and like nothing else
in the movie is, in my opinion. So that's where I'm at. So I'm at
one and a half. You're at three and a half. So we are five out
of ten on Rocky four, which is probably. I'm comfortable with that. I can live
with that. I'm okay with that. And I think, you know, for your reasons,
your score makes a ton of sense, you know? So, geez,
man, what a great dadvent calendar fun December we have had.
But now we're at the end and we're on the last day of the year.
We got to do something else for January. Do you have any ideas, Steve?
I do. I think what we're gonna do for January is we are going to
visit one of the great actors of the era, and by great actors, I should
change that, not great actors. One of the most fantastic movie stars
of the era of the 80s and 90s, we've already seen him once in Terminator
2. We're going to spend all the month of January with one Mr. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
We're calling it Janu Arnie. And we're going to watch four consecutive Arnold
Schwarzenegger films. And the very first one in January,
we're going to start with, we're going to start with this 1987 film,
film from a director we've also already seen.
Mr. John McTiernan, who directed Die Hard, also directed this
movie. It stars alongside shorts nigger, a man we both love
and have talked about several times, Carl Weathers. We're gonna see him again next week
when we go to the South American jungle and we are hunted by the Predator.
So we're gonna watch Predator from 87. I'll just, I'll just tell you straight up
and down, like, if you go to my letterbox, you know, whatever, like, profile,
this is one of my top four movies, like, in the letterbox thing. The Predator
is one of my favorite movies of all time. I, you know,
spoiler alert, I'm probably gonna give it five points unless something weird happens when I
rewatch it. But, like, I cannot wait. Love this movie. Cannot wait to watch it
with you. And it's just a fantastic way to kick off a celebration of Schwarzenegger
films. Beautiful, beautiful way to kick off 2026 with everyone.
Absolutely. That's a wrap. So if you like what you hear and
we hope you do, please. Consider heading over to Apple or Spotify and leaving us
a five star review. It really helps new folks find the show. And be sure
to check out our website at todadss1movie.com, that's the number two and the number
one. On there you can contact us directly, you can find out all kinds of
info about our episodes and the films we discuss, search through transcripts of the show,
and much, much more. We'd also love it if you followed us on Instagram at
todadss1movie. Once again, this has been Rocky IV, another episode of
Two Dads, One Movie. I'm Steve, And I'm Nick. Thank you so much for listening
and we'll catch you next week. Thanks everyone.