Duke

Little known fact about yours truly - I absolutely loved Rocky I-Rocky IV. I love them because I remember my dad renting Rocky I and watching it with me, then about a month later renting II, and doing this every month until we watched them all. I love them because its not a triology, (they've made six so far, but only I-IV are worth watching.) I love them because they use Roman Numerals instead of trying to come up with a different movie title for each one. (Take notes 'Twilight and Harry Potter.')

I love them because how dramatically the movies turned from I-IV when you look at them as a whole.

Rocky I is a legimately awesome movie. I'm pretty sure it won best picture, (even though the Oscars suck, its worth noting.) Rocky I has a story to tell, its one of the most inspirational movies i've ever seen. The scene where Rocky can't sleep the night before the fight, goes home to his girlfriend and simply exclaims, "I can't beat him," WOW. Watch that scene closely. Its hard to describe how to feel when watching that, but it is moving. (Especially given the scene before.)

Rocky II is a very good movie in its own right. Does a really nice job carrying plot-lines over from the first movie. Not nearly as good, but lets say if Rocky I is a 9.5 out of 10, Rocky II is a 7.5 - still very good.

Then there's Rocky III and Rocky IV, which aren't good movies in the classic sense. But are so ridiculous and absurd, so fun to watch and so oddly, uniquely inspiring that they become good movies. In a way III and IV are more iconic than the first two, even though Rocky I and II are better movies.

Now, there are a lot of great reasons to love the Rocky movies. And there are a lot of great characters in these movies. But the best character in the series is Duke - aka Apollo's trainer in I-II and Rocky's in III-whichever one they're one now.

But lemme tell ya - Duke is the man. He's my favorite character in the Rocky series. (Micky is a close second, Apollo a close third.) The great thing about Duke is he has the best quotes .

If you haven't seen the movies, go watch them, but pay close attention to the evolution of Duke. For those of you that have seen the movie, allow me to remind you of how awesome he was.

Rocky I

Awesome Duke Quote (After Round 1 of Apollo's fight verse Rocky.):

"He doesn't know its a damn show! He thinks its a damn fight! Finish this chump, and let's go home."

Rocky II

Aweome Duke Quote (Trying to convince Apollo not to push for a rematch against Rocky) :

"He's all wrong for us baby. I saw you beat that man...like i've never seen no man get beat before. But the man kept. Coming. After you. We don't need no man like that in our lives."

Rocky III

Awesome Duke Quote (After Rocky beats Apollo in a race on the beach and the two celebrate by splashing each other in the water)

"....That is the gayest shit I have ever seen." (Ok, so I made that quote up. But i'm sure Duke was thinking it because he's a total badass.)

Rocky IV

Awesome Duke Quote (After Rocky made the seemingly unstoppable Ivan Drago bleed)

"YOU SEE! HE'S NOT A MACHINE! HE'S A MAN! BE MORE MAN THAN HIM!"

Awesome BONUS Duke Quote! (After he just beat a Soviet Commie bastard in a game of Chess, thus proving the Americans were smarter, as well as stronger than the Russians)

"check mate, friend."

So there ya go. It dawned on me today that Rocky is a total untapped resource for me to be rating shit again, (Adrian, you're on the fucking chopping block for being overrated,) but I needed to start with my man Duke.

VERDICT:

UNDERRATED