“No pain!”

I guess this month, I decided to watch three movies where I watched both the theatrical cut and director’s cut pretty much back-to-back, unintentionally, which is kind of funny. The first two I watched were massive improvements over the original, and I’m glad I can say the same about this director’s cut. However, before I get into my review of the actual cut, I want to first talk about how this even got made in the first place, which I find to be quite interesting. Back in 2020, likely due to COVID-19, Sylvester Stallone announced that he would be making a director’s cut for Rocky IV to mark the film’s thirty-fifth anniversary, with plans to release it later in the year. This was a passion project for him, as he saw major ways to significantly improve his own film, which I greatly admire. New original footage was added, the film was edited to be more serious, and more focus was put on character development. It eventually got delayed by about a year, and it was released in theaters for a limited time in November 2021, and then went to streaming.

And a significant improvement it was. Unlike a lot of other director’s cuts, even Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut, which is one of my favorite movies of all time, they have a problem where you can definitely see the seams that were forced in to make the edit work. With this cut, I found it to be pretty much seamless. There was never anything off-putting about it when it came to how scenes progressed, and if this was the original version, I don’t think anyone would be asking any questions.

My main issue with the theatrical cut of Rocky IV was that it moved at a breakneck speed, giving little to no time at all to linger on its heavier moments. Rocky vs. Drago still very much moves at a fast pace, I mean, it still has basically the same runtime after all, but more time is spent at the beginning to set up the emotional kickstart to the plot at the end of the first act, which, on its own, makes this version better in my opinion. The big “event” that happens early on hit much harder because of all of this than it did before, and so I found myself caring a lot more about Rocky and his motivations the rest of the movie. Even aside from that, the scenes that Stallone decided to add in are more emotionally meaningful than they were before, and I was honestly kind of surprised that they weren’t in the theatrical cut at all.

Ivan Drago was always a great antagonist in the original just due to his imposing nature alone, but in this version, there is just enough stuff added to make him less of a one-dimensional character. He stands up for himself more, and especially at the end, we see a lot more of what’s going on inside of him psychologically. I find that this version of Drago fares much better with Creed II, with where that story goes.

As I mentioned in my introduction, this cut focuses a lot more on being serious, which I definitely prefer. It’s still far more over-the-top than the first two Rocky movies, but I wouldn’t call it cheesy like it was before. Don’t get me wrong, there is certainly a charming quality to the cheesiness of the original cut, but I just prefer this version. By far the best thing that was edited to make this more serious was the entire exclusion of the whole robot. I always really disliked that and found it incredibly weird and out of place, especially when Paulie starts developing feelings for it. Even aside from that, though, Rocky vs. Drago has a much more realistic and grounded approach to its storytelling. The editing also added to this as well. I think more effective flashbacks were used during the montages and I also liked the new punching sound effects, being less dramatic than before (just a personal preference).

While the ending is still not super well done at conveying its message, its still better here. Rocky’s speech at the end is less cheesy, and there are more moments of closure instead of the more abrupt ending the original had. We also get one scene at the very end with Ivan Drago that, while extremely brief, reveals a lot about his character.

I definitely see why people prefer the cheesier original version, but again, this more serious take on a serious story works a lot better in this version for me. It also doesn’t get rid of any of the stuff that I loved, while removing all the stuff that I didn’t like, especially the robot. Overall, still not a perfect film, but a great one now in my opinion.