‘Rocky’ returns to ring with surprising punch

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In theaters

ROCKY BALBOA, written and directed by Sylvester Stallone, 102 minutes, rated PG-13.

Call it a comeback, but “Rocky Balboa” is the best Rocky film to hit theaters since the Academy Award-winning, 1976 original.

It would be easy – and dismissive – to believe this happened by chance, but it didn’t. The truth is that writer, director and star Sylvester Stallone got it right.

In this, the franchise’s sixth outing, the surprise is that Stallone not only has a compelling story to tell, but he also has come to terms with his age in ways that enrich his character. He embraces being 60, which allows him to mine new depths from a character who appeared washed up a few Roman numerals ago.

In an effort to get the franchise back on track and back to its roots, there shrewdly is no mention of the brain damage that sandbagged the last film, “Rocky V” – best to let that go, thanks – though much time is devoted to Rocky mourning his dead wife, Adrian (Talia Shire), who appears in flashback.

The first part of the movie deals with the loss Rocky feels in the wake of her death, with his sullen, estranged son Robert Jr. (Milo Ventimiglia) not exactly helping the situation since his glum mood tends to darken the dimmest corners.

The film focuses on how each must come to terms with Rocky’s fame.

For Rocky, the question is whether he can be satisfied living in the past by telling lame, half-hearted boxing stories to those who frequent his South Philadelphia restaurant, Adrian’s. (Really, he’d prefer to still be in the ring, if only for his love of the sport.)

For Robert, the question is whether he can live in the crushing blow of his father’s formidable shadow.

Meanwhile, on the sidelines, the plot brews.

After ESPN declares that the brute force of a boxer like Rocky, even at his advanced age, could hypothetically take down a young boxing superstar like Mason Dixon (Antonio Tarver), the possibility of an exhibition fight between them naturally is swept to the forefront. For Rocky, his decision to go forward with the game and train for it (cue Bill Conti’s “Rocky” theme music, cut to Rocky punching slabs of beef) comes down to the reason audiences fell for him in the first place – his belief in himself is transcendent. Only now, with the man’s joints hurting from age and his body thickened with arthritis, he once again is a believable underdog, which is a key element to the film’s success.

With Burt Young back as scrappy, squabbling Paulie (Burt Young) and Geraldine Hughes as Marie, a single mother whose budding friendship with Rocky is touching in its nostalgia and in its restraint, the film embraces its share of cliches, but it doesn’t overdo them.

Stallone’s script has the easy feel of improvisation, with his loose, appealing performance following suit. Here is an actor so comfortable in the iconic role he created that he’s able to lose himself in it, deconstructing the myth while finding the man. That’s no easy feat, but Stallone, whose talent as an actor understandably has been cheapened over the years given his questionable choices in movies, nevertheless delivers his best turn since playing Sheriff Freddy Heflin in James Mangold’s excellent “Cop Land.”

In the end, “Rocky Balboa” is a heartfelt, well-done conclusion to a story that began 30 years ago.

Grade: B+

On DVD

THE WICKER MAN, written and directed by Neil LaBute, 106 minutes, rated PG-13.

File it under “What were they thinking?” Then file that file in the trash.

Neil LaBute’s remake of the 1973 horror film of the same name is one of those bad movies that it takes three good movies to get over – and not necessarily for the audience. What they get here is a low, unintentional comedy, a movie so spectacularly rotten, you sit there thinking, “Wow, this is spectacularly rotten.” And then you wonder whether you’re witnessing the worst film of 2006? The short answer? Yes.

Here is a movie in which Academy Award-winning actress Ellen Burstyn appears in a fright wig and “Braveheart” makeup, flapping her arms as she wends around buzzing beehives and trips through utopian woods with her creepy island “sisters” hot on her tail.

Here is a movie in which Academy Award-winning actor Nicolas Cage, the star of the show, dons a bear suit and dances in what essentially is his own little parade of death. All of this and so much more (and so much less) unfolds in “The Wicker Man,” whose plot barely deserves mention here. So, naturally, we’ll mention it.

Cage is Edward Malus, a California cop who begins the film on a bum note. When a little girl throws her doll out of a moving car, Malus pulls the car over only to eventually watch the girl and her mother get creamed by a semi. The car catches fire, it explodes and boom – they’re toast.

Haunted, ruined and hooked on antidepressants, Malus now is a man questioning his very existence when he receives a letter from old flame, Willow (Kate Beahan), whose daughter has gone missing. Will Malus come to the secluded island of Summersisle to help find her? Sure he will. Will Willow’s daughter look exactly like the doll-tossing darling Malus watched burn alive? Sure she will. Will the movie adequately explain all its loose threads and odd connections? The cultlike group of man-hating women who inhabit the island? How LaBute, who wrote the script, convinced this cast to star in this movie?

Sure it won’t.

“The Wicker Man” isn’t as bad as the decade’s biggest misfire, “Battlefield Earth,” but it comes close. It’s the sort of movie in which you hope Ellen Burstyn, once so good in “The Exorcist,” still has a few connections at the Vatican. Her Sister Summersisle character and Cage’s Malus are so embarrassingly conceived, Burstyn might ask for a divine intervention to help us forget them both.

Grade: BOMB

Visit www.weekinrewind.com, the archive of Bangor Daily News film critic Christopher Smith’s reviews, which appear Mondays in Discovering, Fridays in Happening, and weekends in Television as well as on bangordailynews.com. He may be reached at Christopher@weekinrewind.com.