Rocky III

Learning, especially from Scorsese, in his approach to action and performance, writer/director/star Stallone has somehow contrived to make each of his movies into a more magnificent spectacle than the last, eliminating much of the coy sentimentality that tainted the first film, and pacing the boxing scenes with an increasing fury that makes them less like a sport than the epic symbolic struggle of Ray Harryhausen monsters. 'The worst thing happened to you that could happen to any fighter' someone tells Rocky here, 'You got civilised'. And Rocky III depicts the fighter's struggle to come to terms with success, in a progression from danger and defeat to triumph which - as in all the best genre movies - is incredibly simple. As audience movie-making in its purest form, the film is a delight, but it's also so obviously based on Stallone's own personal struggle with success that the mind boggles as to what Rocky can possibly do next. Make movies, perhaps?