Rocky Balboa's last show

I watched the first two or three Rocky films when I was a kid (yeah, my parents weren't afraid about exposing me to violence in films; I even watched horror movies back then and I could stomach them a lot better then than now) and don't remember much except that Rocky had to fight really hard and get bloodied a lot before winning. Sly Stallone was the underdog in the film, and even in real life, especially during the past couple of decades, he seemed one too; people would snicker at his name, his movies. He wasn't a respected actor, not a veteran, not a character actor, not a Robert de Niro or an Anthony Hopkins. Still, I never really got into those Stallone jokes. I didn't care a whole lot for him, but I didn't think it was cool to deride him either.

Watching the trailers for Rocky Balboa woke more than a few memories of seven-year-old me sitting in a movie theater with my parents and brother. Here is Rocky once more - an aged Rocky with a son who could be my age (played by Milo Ventimiglia, my favorite hero on Heroes) - ready to enter the ring again. He's even more of an underdog now because of his senior citizenship. Still, that feel-good theme of under-dog-makes-it gets me. Is it the music? The scenes of tough training, those sound-effects-amplified punches or Rocky's eternal determination etched in his jowly face? Whether it turns out to be a bad film or not, I think I'd like to see it. It's the last one - Stallone (and Rocky) is 60 - and in a way it's saying goodbye to a familiar figure from childhood for me. Rocky's getting old, and I'm getting older.

And whaddaya know, it turns out that Rocky Balboa has been well received and well reviewed - it's fresh on rottentomatoes.com

There's nothing quite like the theme song to get you excited about the finale of a movie franchise stretched over three decades. Except that the excitement's got to last you for three months before the movie gets to Singapore in March.