Rocky Balboa A Movie Review	MPAA Rated - PG It's 1:42 Long A Review by The Dude on the Right

Rocky (Stallone) is older now, and Adrian is dead. He’s running an Italian restaurant where he is happy to tell his boxing stories to anyone who will listen while they eat. His son, Rocky Jr. (Milo Ventimiglia – who you might now recognize from "Heroes"), is having troubles living under his father’s shadow, and of course, resents Rocky for this. On the boxing front, Mason "The Line" Dixon (Antonio Tarver) is the champ now, but no one likes him, and there doesn’t see to be anyone who actually has the talent to fight him. Paulie (Burt Young) is still grumpy. Rocky, meanwhile, also struggles with not having Adrian around, and on an anniversary tour through the neighborhood, finds himself at the old, local bar he used to visit, finding little Marie (Geraldine Hughes), whom he met years ago. Befriending her and her son, Steps (James Francis Kelly III), seems to give Rocky a new lease on life, or at least living, but it’s not solving the fire that is deep in his belly.

Thankfully ESPN comes around to turn this fire into a raging inferno, as they debate, and computerize, whether Rocky or Mason is the better fighter. Suddenly Rocky wants to fight again, and when Rocky questions his decision to fight again, Marie is right there to remind him that he, is, a fighter.

And so, insert the training montage here, and it’s the montage we like, it’s the montage we wait for, and this one is up there with his beating the shit out of a side of beef in the original "Rocky," it’s back to old school like when Rocky was training in the snow for his fight with Ivan Drago, and suddenly the doughy Rocky is transformed into a fighting machine.

The fight this time is between Rocky and Mason, and it’s only an exhibition so that no one gets embarrassed. Mason thinks he is the shit, Rocky just wants to fight, and suddenly, of course, Mason learns a thing or two about really being a boxer, and Rocky shows the world old dudes can still beat up young dudes.

What makes this a great "Rocky" movie is because they keep things simple, like the original. Rocky is the underdog; Mason is the cocky champion. Rocky trains in the simplest of ways; Mason trains thinking the fight will be a cakewalk. The announcers are amazed at the shape Rocky is in; Mason isn’t nervous about the fight. And the actual boxing match is kick ass, as both dudes beat the living daylights out of each other. I could have done without the artsy "black and white" stop images during the fight, but in the end "Rocky Balboa" does what the first "Rocky" did, having us hope Rocky can deliver that knock-out blow to put the "Champ" in his place.

I have to say that Sylvester Stallone, much to my initial dismissal of the movie, closed the series with a great ending (hopefully he won’t let this movie go to his head and try and write another). We have sappiness, we have inspiration, we have beating up a side of beef, we have a drunken’ Paulie, we have a cute normal dudette, we have a great fight, we have a nice training montage, and we have a sequel almost as good as the original, missing only the rawness "Rocky" brought to the big screen.

I really enjoyed "Rocky Balboa," but the grittiness of the original was missing, which was the only issue I had. As such it’s a solid 4 stars out of 5 for "Rocky Balboa." Hopefully this is the ending legacy that is "Rocky" because unlike #5, this is a good one.

It's not artsy.  It's not preachy.  It's just "Rocky."  Go and see it on the big screen - this one deserves it.

That’s it for this one! I’m the Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!