rocky iii

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Rocky III may be a spectacular piece of crap, but man, is it ever a great movie ever to work out to. Especially if you fast-forward past the "character" "development" scenes straight to one of the three (!) training montages.

During the obligatory Adrian Puts Rocky's Head Right scene on the beach, I began to wonder what, exactly, is the most embarrassing thing in this movie. Is it the homoerotic overtones of the Apollo/Rocky training scenes, complete with slo-mo groin closeups and bro-hug amidst crashing surf? A worthy candidate, but no. Is it the horrific racial stereotyping, from Apollo's slum roots to perhaps the single greatest living embodiment of every horrific racial stereotype, Mr. T? Yeah, that part makes me cringe, but it doesn't make me cringe the most.

No, that honor is reserved for Carl Weathers. This former professional football player had to pretend to lose a footrace to Sylvester Stallone. Stallone, who, while running in these scenes, could not possibly look more like a corpse that's undergoing stroke aftershocks. Weathers' performance here is perhaps the single greatest job of acting this side of Jennifer Aniston pretending to be attracted to David Schwimmer.