“Now, when we fought, you had that eye of the tiger, man; the edge! And now you gotta get it back, and the way to get it back is to go back to the beginning. You know what I mean?”

Rocky III takes place roughly three years after the events of Rocky II, where Rocky Balboa is now a defending champion and is celebrated all around the country. After making a decision to retire, however, he is challenged by an angry and determined fighter by the name of Clubber Lang, played by the great Laurence Tureaud, better known by the name of Mr. T. Rocky agrees to fight him, and is pretty much demolished by the second round of the fight. In order to get back his fighting spirit, or “eye of the tiger,” he joins Apollo Creed for training so that he can finally beat Clubber Lang. I know that’s a lot, but that is really the central premise of the story, and I can’t really say anymore without getting into spoiler territory.

The story starts off right away with this awesome montage of Rocky building up his name to fame, and it’s really satisfying to see him in a successful life now. It portrays a stark difference from the first Rocky, as well as Rocky II, where Rocky now has the whole city championing his name, and he’s actually got a life with a real family now. It’s obviously completely earned, seeing him “go the distance” in the first two films, despite all the challenges he came across both physically and psychologically. He’s also a bit of a different character now, but still the same old Rocky. He’s clearly more intelligent, or at least portrays himself that way, and sticks up for himself this time. It’s one of the better off-screen character developments I’ve seen in a while, and one, as I said, that’s completely earned.

Rocky III also has a very different tone from the first two movies, but one that I think was necessary to change things up a bit. It’s more over the top and campy, but in an incredibly fun and entertaining way. It’s also much faster-paced than the previous two films, while still very much giving plenty of attention to character development and story. It never gets too fast-paced for its own good and keeps the spirit of the series intact.

The reason I say that is because there is still very much emotion and stakes here. There is a really powerful moment that takes place later in the first act, which not only kicks things into gear but also provides the emotional core for the story going forward. The one scene in particular probably has one of my favorite Sylvester Stallone performance moments as well. This also leads into Rocky’s main character arc. Due to the nature of how he lost his first fight to Lang, Rocky loses a lot of his motivation and is clearly less determined to win compared to how we’ve seen him before.

This is where Apollo Creed comes in. I think it was a brilliant choice, writing-wise, to bring back Apollo, where instead of him being an antagonistic character for Rocky, he wants to see him win and is even willing to go as far as training him. He goes from being an antagonist, while still pretty fun in his own right, to a character you really like and admire because of how much he cares about Rocky, and not necessarily wants to see him win, though he absolutely does, but just wants to see him get his passion back. Everything else that happens with him trying to get back his fighting spirit is also pretty inspiring to be honest, especially with Adrian, where Talia Shire gets a scene where she really stands out in her performance.

All the training that goes on with Rocky and Apollo is arguably the best and most earned in the series up to this point, behind the first movie, of course. I absolutely love how their friendship and bond develop throughout all of this. This is also the first Rocky movie where they really go for more of a mix of both a soundtrack, with new, original songs, as well as a traditional score, and I’ll just say, it’s brilliant and really gives you that adrenaline feeling when Rocky is training and the music is going on. I love how Rocky’s training ends as well, being very much earned with how things play out, mainly through dialogue, surprisingly.

Can’t forget to mention Clubber Lang either. He’s such a campy, over-the-top antagonist for Rocky this time, much more than Apollo Creed was before, and is a character so intentionally obnoxious and ridiculous that you can’t help but love him. He’s extremely one-dimensional, but nonetheless, very fun and fun to watch in his own right. I think the Rocky series, including the Creed films, has a great track record of delivering unforgettable antagonists and making them very different from one another, with different motivations.

I don’t have any mixed criticisms of the movie, but my main criticism would have to be Paulie. He was definitely a very unlikable character at times in the previous films, but I think he may have been a little too much so here. He’s way too whiny in this film, and all of the traits that he had before are dialed up to eleven, where they should have stayed where they were. It’s not really a big criticism for me, because his role isn’t tremendously huge like in the first movie, but it’s still worth noting.

Overall, though, I was surprised at how much I liked this film on rewatch. It isn’t one of the higher reputable films in the franchise, so I kind of went in expecting it to be a bit of a weaker installment, but to my pleasant surprise, I just watched Rocky IV, and so far, Rocky III is my second favorite Rocky movie behind the first one.