ROCKYSGIVING: Rocky II

How do you follow up lightning in a bottle? Why not direct the sequel?

Stallone took over directing duties for this sequel and despite a few failed projects and wound up making a worthy successor to the original. It’s not Oscar-worthy, but Stallone tightens up the story and fleshes out some of the things we loved from the original, like Adrian and Rocky’s relationship or Apollo’s character and motivation. Mickey’s a cartoon character in this movie but it doesn’t take away from the goofy charm of Rocky as Stallone settles into the character that would make him a full-on movie star. We’re starting to think that maybe, just maybe, we might not hate the Rocky franchise before this whole thing’s over…

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Intro music taken from the Second Movement of Ludwig von Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Hong Kong (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 HK) license. To hear the full performance or get more information, visit the song page at the Internet Archive.

“Fanfare for Rocky” taken from the Score for Rocky, written and composed by Bill Conti. ℗ 2015 United Artists Corporation. Full soundtrack can be found at iTunes and Amazon.

“Eye of the Tiger” taken from the album of the same name by Survivor. ℗ 1991 Volcano Entertainment, III, L.L.C. The full album can be found on iTunes and Amazon.