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PRINTER-FRIENDLY VIEW 
Review of Rocky III (Bill Conti)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you are attracted to the popular "Eye of the Tiger"
title song or if you seek to create as complete a compilation of Bill
Conti's sentimental symphonic music for the franchise as possible.
Avoid it... if the limited six minutes of pretty Conti material (for the high-impact, emotional scenes in the film) on the inadequate album aren't worth a product that mostly regurgitates tracks from previous Rocky albums.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Rocky III: (Bill Conti) One thing about the
Rocky franchise was certain: as Rocky Balboa achieved greater and
greater fame and thus became a spectacle of mainstream media, so too did
the film franchise depicting him degenerate into a show rather than a
story. Lead actor Sylvester Stallone, who once again wrote and directed
the sequel, attempted to maintain this realistic and honest assessment
of the sport of boxing (as well as the encroaching entertainment value
of professional wrestling) while not losing touch with the sentimental
aspects of Rocky's personal life. Along with the death of his mentor and
trainer, a surprising and growing friendship with former adversary
Apollo Creed extends the personal narrative. The Rocky phenomenon
was still running strong into the 1980's, now enjoying a significantly
larger budget while yielding returns in the hundreds of millions of
dollars. Even more than Rocky IV, the 1982 entry of Rocky
III is perhaps best remembered for its introduction of favorite
character actors to movie-goers; both Mr. T and Hulk Hogan were destined
for successful careers after their roles in this picture. With the
franchise proven financially, Stallone had a few more resources from
which to draw for the soundtrack for Rocky III as well. The
involvement of Bill Conti for the score was an obvious choice (Stallone
hailed the composer's similar Italian roots), though he would not have
the opportunity to write a new pop and symphonic-blended song for a
third time. Instead, Stallone asked the rock group Survivor to write the
now infamous song "Eye of the Tiger," named after the secondary title of
the film and an element of Apollo's training of Rocky in the narrative's
latter half. Topping the charts as a single for several weeks and
returning a Rocky album to the limelight, the song's opening
thirty seconds have since become a normal anthem for large-scale
sporting events. It represented the film's only Academy Award
nomination, however, placing some perspective on how far the franchise
had fallen in the minds of industry establishment. Indeed, some of the
personal touch of the original film was lost, the inspiration turned
wholesale for the purposes of flashier entertainment. The memorable
Survivor song, despite its obvious, lasting popularity, testifies to
this shift. Not surprisingly, Stallone also turned to his brother for an
even greater role in Rocky III; not only is the "Take You Back"
song reprised in two forms for the soundtrack, but Frank performs the
more contemporary (and a bit obnoxious) "Pushin'" as well.
Unfortunately, Rocky III experiences a greater disconnect between its music on screen and that on its album when compared to its predecessors. Not only is the version of "Eye of the Tiger" on the album different (technically, the film edit was considered a demo), but the instrumental adaptation of that song for the training of Rocky by Apollo is also missing from the album. Conti's score wasn't particularly well served by the album, either. The Rocky LPs (and later identical CD releases) were never long, always running just a tad over thirty minutes, and this brevity especially hurts Conti's work for Rocky III. Most of the material on the album is simply a reprise (in contents and even sometimes name) of what was previously released from the first two albums, thus making this soundtrack a "best of" highlight product. The redemption theme from Rocky II is absent, as are both the adversity and victory themes from both previous scores. The love theme and its adaptation into a family theme in Rocky II are extended to the material for both Adrian and the death of Mickey, Rocky's original trainer. These two cues in Rocky III, "Mickey" and "Adrian," are its only truly interesting and original six minutes of music, a good match for the two equally pretty symphonic cues from Rocky II on any compilation of Conti's fluffier side. Both cues offer fragments of the "Gonna Fly Now" fanfare theme, the latter in appealingly snazzy form. The only other unique material to be heard in the score is the two-minute, dissonant, electronic cue "Reflections," which had no business making it onto this album. Other Conti cues in Rocky III are straight reprises, including "Decision" (named "Reflections" in Rocky and still containing that absolutely awful, synthetic pitch effect that rises through the octaves), "Gonna Fly Now" (the original Rocky recording), and "Conquest" (representing Rocky II and Apollo). Otherwise, there's really nothing of note to mention about the Rocky III album. It's a poor representation of the score despite being the last good offering of Conti's contribution to the franchise during its original five-picture run. The sound quality did pick up in both Rocky II and Rocky III, though an available remastering of Rocky helped alleviate the previously significant difference in clarity (especially in the string section of the orchestra). If you want to create the best compilation of material from Conti's first three scores in the series, though, you really do need to include at least the "Mickey" cue from Rocky III, and "Eye of the Tiger" is an obvious plus. Until this score receives better album treatment, however, it's definitely less attractive than its predecessors. ***
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 31:53
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert includes no extra information about the score or film (in fact, the
interior of the insert is almost completely blank).
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The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from Rocky III are Copyright © 1996, EMI Records and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 12/15/09 (and not updated significantly since). |
