Rocky III (1982)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	1982
Running Time	95:12
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (52:44)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Sylvester Stallone
Studio Distributor	MGM	Starring	Sylvester Stallone Talia Shire Burt Young Carl Weathers Burgess Meredith Tony Burton Mr. T Hulk Hogan Ian Fried Al Silvani Wally Taylor Jim Hill Don Sherman
Case	?
RPI	$19.95	Music	Bill Conti

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English English for the Hearing Impaired German German for the Hearing Impaired French Italian Spanish Dutch Swedish Finnish Norwegian Danish Portuguese Polish Hungarian Greek Turkish Hebrew	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	Yes
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Rocky III (1982) is a very different Rocky film. Rocky III has replaced the sentimentality and dialogue-driven drama of the first two Rocky films with pure action and all-out entertainment.

    "A Fighter. A Lover. A Legend. The Greatest Challenge".

    Once again written and directed by Sylvester Stallone, in Rocky III, Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) now reigns supreme as the undisputed boxing heavyweight champion of the world. Having become rather "civilised", Rocky has grown soft and complacent within his new lifestyle. But just when he is ready to announce his retirement from the ring, Clubber Lang (an electrifying Mr. T), an angry, aggressive and rude black boxer with a real hunger for the title abuses and taunts Rocky publicly. Rocky 's instinctive response is to accept Clubber's challenge for a title match.

    Rocky will face new challenges in Rocky III that will plunge both he and his wife (Talia Shire) into despair, and even depression. But with the help of his new trainer (and former nemesis) Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers), Rocky will fight to regain "the eye of the tiger".

    Fans of the legendary boxing champ, Ali, will enjoy the homage to his famous rope-a-dope title match tactic.

Video

    The transfer is noticeably better than the previous film's.

    The transfer is presented in a widescreen aspect ratio of 1.85:1. It is 16x9 enhanced.

    Again the sharpness is variable, but generally okay. As with the previous film, the shadow detail is often poor. For example, consider the shot of Pauly watching television at 6:34, or the scene in the gym at 52:50, which both lack any shadow detail at all.

    As with the previous film, the colour often appears undersaturated (or muted), and again, some of the skin tones have a slight orange/brown tint. Whites can often appear grey, such as at 12:20.

    There are no problems with MPEG artefacts, but again there is often a serious amount of grain present. As with the previous film, it seems various film stocks have been used, and some of them result in a very grainy image, such as at 3:32.

    There are no serious problems with film-to-video artefacts, just a slight shimmer here and there. The frequency and severity of film artefacts is greatly reduced from the previous film, and they are not distracting at all.

    English, English for the Hearing Impaired, German, German for the Hearing Impaired, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian, Danish, Portuguese, Polish, Hungarian, Greek, Turkish, and Hebrew subtitles are present. The English subtitles are accurate.

    This is a Dual Layer disc, with the layer change at 52:44. It is during a conversation between Rocky and Apollo, so it is noticeable.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There are five audio tracks on the DVD: English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s), German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s), French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s), Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s), and Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s).

    The dialogue quality and audio sync are fine throughout on the default English audio track.

    The musical score is again credited to Bill Conti, and as I mentioned in my review of the previous film, Conti "shot to fame with his theme for Rocky, "Gonna Fly Now". This theme has been re-worked and re-used in all five films. Apart from this, Conti has also composed many memorable television themes, such as those for Dynasty and Cagney & Lacey".

    I was disappointed with the surround presence and activity. Indeed, as I mentioned in my review of the previous film, Rocky II's stereo surround audio was more aggressive and immersive than the 5.1 track provided on Rocky III. The surround sound mix is very front heavy, and the rear speakers are used minimally to provide some ambience. A good example of the poor use of the surrounds comes at 36:20. While the crowd is frantically chanting, only a tiny amount of sound appears in the rears.

    There was no serious use of LFE for the subwoofer, which is not surprising considering the vintage of the film.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    Considering this was a re-release, I was expecting more in the way of extras.

Menu

    A simple menu.

Theatrical Trailer (2:25)

    The trailer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, with English Dolby Digital Stereo audio.

    Rocky III was originally released on DVD in R1 as part of the Rocky Collection DVD Box Set. That disc appears to be much the same as our version (ignoring the NTSC/PAL differences).

   This year, the Rocky Anthology DVD Box Set was released in R1, and again, the R1 version appears to be much the same as ours (ignoring the NTSC/PAL differences).

    Rocky III is a real crowd pleaser, and also features the big screen arrival of Hulk Hogan and Mr. T.

    The video quality is better than the previous film, and good overall.

    The audio quality is good, but very front heavy.

    The extras are limited to one trailer.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall