But you STILL wouldn’t be able to defend Rocky IV without feeling a little bit stupid.

At its core, the plot is perfectly fine. Life in the Stallion household is rosey until trouble arrives in the form of a Russian fighter - who appears to be more machine than man.

Boasting to the American media that the monosyllabic Ivan Drago is the hardest man alive, the Russian's entourage wind Apollo up, who soon insists on taking the Russian down in an exhibition fight.

Unfortunately, the Russian has more power in one punch than Apollo in his whole career, and the former champ’s demise is touchingly realised as his old foe and good friend Rocky cradles the dying Apollo in his arms.

"If he dies... he dies," quips Drago.

Apart from a pointless subplot involving Paulie and a robot, it’s so far so good - but Apollo’s entry into the ring is accompanied by a James Brown song, and not just a bit of it – all three verses.

And that's the way the rest of the film goes. Sly showed plenty of writing ability in the first three chapters, and here his script still has some excellent lines – but his storytelling is purely a bunch of montage sequences strung together with occasional talky scenes in between, oh and the occasional piece of subtle-as-a-brick product placement.

The worst moment comes after one of his standard rows with Adrian. Rocky's subsequent drive along to a rock tune contains an incredible amount of flashbacks, going back to the first movie and culminating with a flashback to the scenes and moments preceding the first flashback.

Thankfully, the production values are high and the characters are the same bunch we’ve come to know and love over the years.

Young and Shire must have realised by now that they are included purely for the occasional row, Dolph Lundgren looks awesome and Bridgette Nielsen even manages to look scarier than Mr T’s Clubber Lang,

As for the fights? They’re as brutal and stupidly enjoyable as they’ve ever been, even if all three of the fighters would have been TKO’d – or dead - in almost every round.

And just in case you miss anything, Stallone has populated the soundtrack with songs that explain what you might have missed. At one point, Survivor sing the words "Is it east versus west? Or man against man?"

Eye Of The Tiger must have seemed so long ago.

Rich Phippen