Sylvester Stallonehas been involved in a lot of great fight scenes over the course of his long movie career. Fighting was indeed what put him on the map withthe originalRockyin 1976, but the star has taken on plenty of opponents outside the ring as well. Stallone’s action hero status has guaranteed him an unending stream of bad guys to take down.
Sometimes he has the advantage of a big old gun, or a giant combat knife, or an exploding arrowhead, but sometimes,Stallone has to do it with just his fists, which are always ready to fly.Agreat Stallone fight sceneis often not about choreography or editing or stunts. The settings play a big part, as do the emotional stakes set up by the story. Sometimes, the match-up is what matters most, while other times, it’s all about the way Stallone plays it.
Lock Up
Cast
Lock Up stars Sylvester Stallone as Frank Leone, a convict nearing the end of his sentence in a minimum-security prison. He is unexpectedly transferred to a maximum-security facility by a vengeful warden who harbors a personal grudge against him. Directed by John Flynn, the film explores themes of resilience and justice as Leone navigates brutal challenges to regain his freedom.
Stallone plays Frank Leone, a convict wrongfully transferred to maximum security by a corrupt warden (Donald Sutherland). When Frank’s green young prison buddy is murdered with a barbell by the sadistic Weber (Predator’s Sonny Landham), he goes after the cold-blooded thug in the prison yard, brawling with him in the snow.
There’s nothing flashy or choreographed about it, which is appropriate to the movie’s gritty tone.
The combatants trade blows and wrestle in the dirt, and there’s nothing flashy or choreographed about it, which is appropriate to the movie’s gritty tone. Weber at one point holds a shiv to Frank’s face, looking like he’s really jabbing it into Stallone’s cheek. Fueled by pure rage, Frank gets the upper hand, pummeling Weber mercilessly, and preparing to kill him with a barbell that happens to be handy, before finally letting him live.
Hitman Jimmy Bobo (Stallone) avenges his murdered partner by going after assassin Keegan (Jason Momoa). They finally meet at a construction site, and since a regular fist-fight won’t do, they pick up axes. Momoa shows off some impressive axe moves, swinging and twirling the weapon. Stallone gets to show off too, when Jimmy works a disarmed Keegan’s midsection like Rocky hitting the heavy bag.
Lumberjack equipment would become a bit of a thing for Momoa, who later added axe throwing to his repertoire.
The huge, athletic Momoa battling the more compact, scrappier Stallone makes for an interesting contrast of styles. A wild upper-cut axe swing finally cuts Jimmy’s axe handle in two, but he is able to jam the severed blade end into Keegan’s foot, then stabs him in the throat, before his cop partner ends proceedings with a bullet to the head.
Rocky’s first fight with Clubber Lang is a disaster that ends with the champ being destroyed, and his beloved trainer Mickey dying. Rocky trains with Apollo for the rematch, and climbs back into the ring with Clubber for a final showdown. Rocky predictably comes out hot against Lang, but then changes things up by going into the rope-a-dope, the same tactic used by Muhammad Ali in his famous real-life fight against George Foreman. Lang delivers a beating, but Rocky still won’t go down, frustrating Lang.
Rocky’s crafty mind-games finally lead to the hot-headed Lang utterly losing his cool, throwing wild punches and tiring himself. Rocky takes advantage with a furious barrage that knocks Clubber out.The fight is memorable for the emotional stakes involved, and for Mr. T’s intimidating presence as Clubber.
Cobra
In Cobra, a genius mathematician turns vigilante and uses his intellect to execute intricate crimes while police attempt to apprehend him. As the story progresses, layers of mystery unravel, leading to a gripping narrative filled with suspense and intellectual duels.
Stallone is the brilliantly-named Marion Cobretti, a cop billed as the cure for crime. Cobretti is bent on stopping a murder cult led by the Night Slasher (Brian Thompson). A steel mill serves as the setting for the final showdown between the cop and the cult leader. A very sweaty and ripped Cobretti picks up a chain to battle this knife-wielding maniac. Flames shoot, lights flash, and a giant hook swings ominously back and forth.
Night Slasher at one point has Cobretti dangling over molten steel, about to stab him in the eyes with his spiked knuckle duster, before Cobra overpowers him. Cobretti needs only his fists, and that giant hook, to defeat the crazed Night Slasher. ’80s action movies seldom got cheesier thanCobra, and the final fight provides the perfect ridiculous climax.
Long before the epic bus fights inNobodyandShang-Chi, Stallone had his own memorable tussle on public transportation. InThe Specialist, Stallone’s Ray Quick is a bomb-expert-turned-hitman who keeps such a low profile, he doesn’t even have a car. While riding a Miami city bus, Ray is enraged by a thug who steals a seat from a pregnant lady, and commences beating up him and his friend, throwing one of them through a window.
Stallone wanted David Fincher to directThe Specialist, but the studio shot the idea down afterAlien 3was a flop.
The sequence includes some solid close-quarters action choreography, but it’s really sold by Stallone’s deadpan demeanor, and brilliant underplayed reading of lines like“I hate knives.”The scene has nothing at all to do with the plot, but does establish Stallone’s character as a good guy who will throw down on behalf of a pregnant stranger.
Stallone’s John Spartan is an unfrozen supercop in a future without crime. Wesley Snipes’ gleeful criminal Simon Phoenix appears to sow chaos in paradise. The old enemies face off in the cryo-prison where they were both formerly incarcerated. The cryo-prison setting provides a lot of crazy sci-fi obstacles and props, including the huge laser gun Phoenix tries to blast Spartan with. Things eventually come down to hand-to-hand combat, with Snipes showing off his martial arts skills. Stallone and Snipes trade awesome-looking punches, with Snipes getting in some cool leg-sweeps and kicks.
In keeping withDemolition Man’s over-the-top absurdity, Spartan finishes Phoenix off in the most outrageous way possible, flash-freezing him with a cryogenic gadget, then swinging around on a huge steel claw to kick his frozen head off. The fight perfectly encapsulatesthe movie’s unique blend of futuristic sci-fi and pure ‘90s-style action nonsense.
The Expendables 2
The Expendables 2 reunites some of the most famous action stars in movie history in an explosive mission to stop Jean Claude Van Damme’s terrorist leader Jean Vilain. This time, Sylvester Stallone’s Barney Ross is accompanied not only by teammates such as Jason Statham’s Lee Christmas, Dolph Lundgren’s Gunner Jensen, and Terry Crews' Hale Caesar, but also by old friends like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Trench Mauser, Bruce Willis' Mr. Church, and Chuck Norris' Booker.
TheExpendablesmovies often promise more than they can deliver when it comes to matching up great ‘80s action stars. One exception came inExpendables 2, when Stallone’s Barney Ross battled Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Vilain. They never got to square off back in the ‘80s, so it means something when Stallone and Van Damme finally throw down. Staged in a dank airport hangar, the fight is milked for all it’s worth. Stallone gets to heavy-bag Van Damme’s midriff, and Van Damme gets to pull off his signature leaps and kicks.
Punching and kicking soon get old, so Barney grabs a long chain, and Vilain whips out a huge knife. Barney takes control with a Van Damme-like spin-kick that sends his opponent unrealistically flying backward. Vilain is dispatched when Barney lassos him around the neck with his chain, and pulls him right into the knife blade.
TheRambomovies are somewhat lacking in great hand-to-hand combat scenes, as Stallone’s character tends to either kill people using stealth, or shoot fifteen of them at a time with a big machine gun. An exception isRambo III, which kicks off with Rambo retired from being a one-man army, and occupying himself in Thailand by beating people up with sticks in krabi-krabong matches. Stallone often pits himself against martial artists in his movies, but ends up beating them with old-fashioned punching.
This time, Rambo employs what looks to be actual krabi-krabong technique, while mixing in some WWE moves. It can be argued thatRambo IIInever gets better than its opening fight, which has a wildBloodsportfeel to it. Unfortunately, Trautman shows up during the match, and soon has Rambo on a plane to Afghanistan. It can be argued thatRambo IIInever gets better than its opening fight, which has a wildBloodsportfeel to it. Unfortunately, Trautman shows up during the match, and soon has Rambo on a plane to Afghanistan.
The boxing in the originalRockymay not always be very convincing, but thenRockyis not really a boxing movie. The climactic fight between Rocky and Apollo is the payoff to a grounded drama whose magic lies in its smaller character moments. The Rocky v. Apollo fight is, in some ways, just another of these character moments, extended in time, andraised by Bill Conti’s iconic scoreto a rafter-shaking level.
The emotional high reached at the end of Rocky’s fight with Apollo – which, significantly, he doesn’t technically win – is still being chased by movies likeCreed. TheRockyfranchise kept chasing that high too, but never got all the way back to that place.Rocky II’s Apollo v. Rocky rematch may be better in some ways, but it still feels a little hollow when Rocky actually wins.
The Apollo Creed fight in the firstRockyis the emotional high point of the series. But that scene is actually an outlier in Stallone’s career, a rare example of a fight that truly pays off in character terms. Most of Stallone’s fights are just fun battles that serve their action-movie purpose, which is to be cool and entertaining, and mean little in terms of paying off what the character has been going through.
Rocky IV: Rocky Vs. Drago - The Ultimate Director’s Cutcame out in 2021, featuring 38 minutes of previously-unseen footage
Rocky’s fight with Drago inRocky IVis supposed to pay off on these character terms, but the movie is directed and cut like a music video, so it doesn’t land. Drago is a cartoonish video game boss, and it’s absurd that Rocky beats him. That slick, ultra-80s absurdity is what makesRocky IV’s climactic battle a better action-movie fight than Rocky’s life-affirming first tilt with Apollo.
