Rocky Balboa - 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray SteelBook

If there’s one true thing about the Rocky franchise, you never count out the champ until that bell rings. After a disastrous fifth outing and a few career ups and downs, Stallone was ready to take another swing with the Philly pugilist. Time healed enough wounds that Sly crafted a heartfelt story about a man trying to reconcile his past while finding a place for himself in the future. The idea of a long past-his-prime boxer stepping back into the ring seemed like a joke, but Stallone pulled it off. If Creed hadn’t come along, this film would stand true as a fitting send-off for the Italian Stallion. 

Since 2006 I’ve seen this film dozens of times. Caught it a couple of times in the theater, DVD, Blu-ray, and now we have it in 4K. What makes this release special is Stallone took a page out of his Rocky IV playbook and gave this film a new Director’s Cut. At roughly an hour fifty-six, the film runs about fourteen minutes longer but features many new character-building moments, interesting scene extensions, and alternate takes. 

An early scene extension is the opening credits where Rocky wakes up and goes about his morning routine. Instead of just feeding the turtles and throwing sweets to the birds, we see Paulie is living with him after Adrian’s death. He has a coffee cup with his name on it and everything and we see Rocky is still taking care of his best friend all these years later. 

The next obvious change is when Rocky meets Geraldine Hughes’ all-grown-up Little Marie. In this new version, the bar has far more patrons milling about, and we get to see Rocky reconnect with bartender Andie (Don Sherman). It’s a little more personable as more people from the old neighborhood chat with Rocky during his grief tour. It’s not as straightforward as when it was just Stallone and Huges in their Theatrical scene, but we pick up more history and character pieces that glue the background stories together. 

But the best change, the one that really pulled the heartstrings is a scene extension after Paulie gets fired. Instead of coming into the restaurant, grabbing a drink, and leaving, he has a full-on breakdown in the back alley. Burt Young was always a great actor, but it’s this scene that explains why all love Paulie. He may be an insecure jerk, but deep down he has a heart and this is a hell of a moment. After that, the film plays very much the same as before. A little change here, a small alternate take there, but nothing radically different. The one thing I wish this cut had done better was to give Antonio Tarver’s Masson “The Line” Dixon more time to be his own character. We hardly know him or understand who he is other than “that other boxer” making him the weakest opponent of the franchise. 

This isn’t a full-on redo of the film like Rocky vs Drago: Rocky IV Ultimate Director’s Cut. Stallone didn’t reframe the movie to 2.35:1. The color timing is the same as the Theatrical. The music choices are the same. What’s different is it has that much more heart to it with a few new scens. Rocky movies have a knack for making you feel the feels and choke up a bit, but this new cut of Rocky Balboa really lands some misty-eyed gut punches. It was already a very good movie, but now it’s a great sequel.

Theatrical Cut - 4.5/5
Director’s Cut - 5/5

Vital Disc Stats: The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray 

Rocky Balboa enters the 4K ring with a two-disc 4K UHD + Blu-ray + Digital SteelBook from Warner Bros. Both Theatrical and Director’s cuts of the film are on the same BD-100 disc, with the same old BD-50 disc serving up the Theatrical Cut in 1080p. The discs get their own trays in this stylish SteelBook that maintains the black and white with red accent theme of the old Best Buy SteelBooks. The disc loads to a static image main menu that lets you choose which cut of the film to watch.

Both cuts of Rocky Balboa go to the body in 1.85:1 2160p Dolby Vision. These cuts aren’t authored via seamless branching, but in fact, are two separate files. This film was already going to be a touch-and-go prospect given it was shot on 35mm and digital video - that was already obvious in 1080p, and it’s even more so now. With that, you can tell a lot of effort was made to make the best of the situation.

Speaking specifically of the Director’s Cut, the new footage largely comes through okay. Some bits looked a little rougher around the edges, but nothing too distractingly serious - they looked worse when they were just extra features. Overall details are more crisply defined and cleaner looking than the old 1080p disc. Even the digital video footage looks a little nicer than before so I consider that a win. Maybe not a complete knockout compared to the five previous all-35mm films, but an appreciable enough upgrade.

The best enhancement is the Dolby Vision HDR grade and how well it works with Stallone’s more stylized photography for this outing. Those blown-out whites are still there but now there’s a little more dimensionality to the image giving scenes like the first time we see Milo Ventimiglia’s Rocky Jr. some more depth. The cold blue tones also see some more subtle lighting gradience as well again lending to more image depth. The black and white with color accents for the final fight pop beautifully. 

My main issue with how this one was handled compared to the other films on 4K, each cut could have thrived a little more if they’d been pressed on separate BD-66 discs. Overall bitrates are strong but notably lower for those DV sequences. When it's obviously film and there's film grain, we can see some pretty high peaks in the bitrate. But when it's obviously video, it dips pretty low. I’d be curious if separating the discs and giving each cut more bitrate room wouldn’t have helped some visuals land in 2160p better than they do here. That said, this could be the best they could do with it - which isn’t terrible in the least.

This round of Rocky Balboa punches in with a DTS-HD MA 5.1 track over the PCM 5.1 mix of old. To my ears, there was little of any appreciable difference. Doing some disc flippies for the theatrical cut, I felt like I was spending more time trying to convince myself there was a difference than actually hearing anything that stood out. Both cuts sound fantastic. Dialog is clear throughout without issue. The Bill Conti score is just as soulful as ever. The training montage just as rousing as ever and the big final fight packs plenty of auditory punch. I flipped my receiver into DTS Neural:X and felt that for those big crowded scenes at bars, restaurants, and at the fight, the element spacing opened up nicely and gave those heavy punches extra heft.

Hey, this one has on-disc bonus features! These are all archival extras, but it’s still something! The big difference over the previous disc’s extras is that since most of the deleted scenes are now in the actual Director’s Cut, there are only two cut pieces left, Paulie’s girlfriend and the alternate ending. Since we never see her again, she was already a nonstarter and the alternate ending never sat well with me. Rocky didn’t need to win the fight to win his life back.

• Audio Commentary featuring Sylvester Stallone
• Deleted Scenes
• Alternate Ending (HD 3:38)
• Paulie’s Girlfriend Moves His Things (HD 1:17)
• Skills vs Will: The Making of Rocky Balboa (HD 17:47)
• Virtual Champion Creating the Computer Fight (HD 5:08)
• Fight Makeup (HD 1:33)

For a film at the front end of the Hollywoof trend for deep nostalgic franchise legacy sequels, Rocky Balboa is a knockout. It earns the right to have come back to theaters after so many years away. It’s not only a fitting return, but a rightful sendoff for the character that Rocky V never was. Age, career ups and downs, and life in general tamed Stallone’s worst ‘80s and ‘90s tendencies as an actor and filmmaker for a rousing final round of the Italian Stallion (not counting the Creed movies of course). And the Director’s Cut is even better. On 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray, the film sees a worthy visual upgrade, but it’s limited given how it was filmed on multiple formats. The Dolby Vision grade is the real transfer highlight while the DTS Audio lands its jabs and we see the return of some archival extras. One of the best, if not the best sequels of the franchise scores a nice enough 4K UHD SteelBook. Recommended