The peaks of the Rocky franchise are the first movie and the fourth movie. Rocky is the Academy Award-winning drama and Rocky IV is the exhilarating, montage-driven 80s popcorn flick. Yes, this is a silly movie, but Ivan Drago is an intimidating opponent, and I think we all shed a tear or two when Apollo died. If nothing else, this movie gave us one of the best workout soundtracks ever - thanks, Rocky IV!

By the mid 1980s. There was a kind of symbiosis between music and the movies. MTV goes to the movies.

Rocky III had the Eye of the Tiger as a killer soundtrack and a lot of fast edits. The movie felt like an extended music video at times.

By the time Rocky IV arrived. Sylvester Stallone as writer, director and star wanted to wrest the franchise away from it more serious and downbeat roots.

Out went the Rocky fanfare at the beginning. Much of Bill Conti's stirring themes are missing. In comes a lot of rock and synth songs plus James Brown.

Stallone had always been vocal that he always wanted Rocky to fight a big Russian. In Swede Dolph Lundgren he found him. The Cold War provided the basis of the story.

Lundgren plays Ivan Drago, a man machine from the Soviet Union who now want to enter the world of professional boxing.

Apollo Creed is annoyed with the proposed Russian takeover of boxing and challenges Drago to an exhibition bout with Rocky as his trainer.

Rocky having seen footage of Drago in action thinks this is a dumb idea but reluctantly agrees. Creed is battered by Drago and dies in the ring.

To avenge Creed's death. Rocky agrees to fight Drago in Russia without backing of the boxing boards, the US government and Adrian.

Drago is bulked up by dope by the Soviets and its state of the art training systems. Rocky chops wood, runs up a mountain, lives frugally in a log cabin. He does not even have any sparring partners. The US Embassy in Moscow have not even bothered to look him. Maybe they thought that some black guy was still heavyweight champion of the world!

Stallone reinvents the David v Goliath tale. He also takes a leaf out of Ronald Reagan's 1984 re-election campaign with the training montage. It is a cheesy addition to the Rocky saga aimed at the feel good Reaganite demographics of the mid 1980s. The story is wafer thin. The political subtext is kindergarten level.

I re-watched the movie with the Director's cut. The James Brown stuff seemed to have gone on longer. There seems to be a bit more Dolph Lundgren who turned out to be a genuine discovery. Given that Dolph has shown more acting chops, maybe Stallone should had risked given him more lines in Russian.

The Director's cut winds down the jingoistic ending. No surprise given the era when the film was released, there was a nuclear arms race.

Now the Russian have realised and Stallone seems to be aware of this. You can buy off right wingers and their friends in the media with what they love best, money.

In the movie, Rocky tells the people the Berlin Wall is wrong and divides people. Now some Americans rather liked a president who wanted to build a big wall and get Mexico to pay for it.

Pound for pound (as they say),this has to be the most cliché dialoged film I've ever seen. The one in my summary line came from Rocky's trainer Duke (Tony Burton) in his conversation with the champ in Russia, and other examples abound. There's the bedtime chat with Rocky's son - "We can't change what we are" and the 'no matter what' conversation with Adrian (Talia Shire) prior to the big bout in Moscow. Along with the generous helping of flashback scenes from the first three Rocky films, this picture took the lazy way out with no pretense of offering a compelling narrative built on character development or effective story telling.

That's not to say the picture didn't have it's moments. Probably the best sequence of the film had those juxtaposed scenes of Rocky and Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren) immersed in their training regimen; Rocky battling the elements in the harsh Russian countryside, Drago pumping up with the latest technologically advanced equipment and monitored to the max for ultimate physical output and endurance. The intended effect was palpable, the manufactured athlete would prove superior to the natural one.

Ultimately though, I can't get that excited about this installment in the franchise. Just about everything in the film screamed copycat for it's imitation of the first three films, from the flashback scenes to Apollo Creed's (Carl Weathers) impersonation of Muhammad Ali, to the physical impossibility of each man absorbing so much punishment in the ring and still standing. I know, it's just a movie, but this one created an unnecessary low in the series. I mean really, how can you take it seriously when Paulie (Burt Young) comes out with a line like "Blast this guys teeth out!"