Rocky movies are 80% pretext, and 20% fight.

The pretext usually involves Rocky making idiotic jokes and squabbling with Paulie. There are the emotional retrospectives cobbled together from snippets of Micky screaming, Mr. T scowling, and Adrian crying. And there is always a training montage where Rocky lifts something extremely heavy over and over again with increasing ease.

The pretext in Rocky Balboa isn’t terrible. Paulie is grouchy. Rocky spews plenty of dimwitted banter. South Philly still looks a lot like Kensington.

Sure, maybe there is one too many visits to Adrian’s grave. And the slowed Gonna Fly Now theme music building to a movie-ending crescendo is more than a little saccharine. But all told it is a much better cap to the series than the Tommy Gun drivel in Rocky V.

And then there is the fight. I’m normally an advocate of sixty-year-olds keeping their shirts on. And after seeing this fight, I would still kindly request that all sixty-year-olds please retain their respective outerwear.

Sagging skin aside, Stallone holds his own and keeps it believable. The fight, like the entire movie, seems just plausible enough to be exciting.