I saw this on Veterans Day, opening night, live in a Fandom Event. I have not written my thoughts about it up until now. Rocky IV was one of my favorite Rocky movies in the franchise. I mean… Rocky defeated Communism. Who would have guessed?

However, Sylvester Stallone was not too happy with the end result of the film. He wanted to make this film more serious. He wanted to bring a different tone. He wanted to limit the 1980s feel. And he wanted to get rid of the robot.

He certainly did all of that.

This director’s cut changes so much about the original. This felt more like an independent film and it had much less 80s tone. Stallone removed a lot of the original content from Rocky IV and added several scenes.

There was more with Apollo. There was more with Drago. There was not much of Paulie and Rocky’s kid did not make most of the cut. They did more with Adrian and we saw more of the funeral of Apollo.

The montages were still in the film, but they had a little different feel to them.

My thoughts are this. I liked this version of the movie, but I did not like it more than the movie we already had. This absolutely felt like a different movie, but there was something original about Rocky IV and its cheese factor. The new version was fine, and I am happy Sly feels as if he had made it better. I would still choose the 1985 version.

3 stars