I'm excited for sure ... and I'd bet Cord will be too. He slimmed down over the Rocky movies but also toned a lot more ... less body fat. Not so much for the last Rocky movie and certainly does not have the body of Rocky IV for this movie, but at 59 ... I hope I look this good and am still functional like he is. Stallone is the man.

Intersting factiod No. 132456: Stallone played Rocky as a lean mean 195lb fighter for the Rematch with Clubber Lang. In reality, stallone dropped to just 155lbs to achieve the uber ripped, 'post Apollo training' visual effect.

I think the title being 'Rocky Balboa' with no numbers or tag lines indicates that he is trying to bring the character full circle, and return to the roots of the first movie. Lest we forget that, back in the late 70's after Rocky 1, Sly was tipped to be 'the new DeNiro', and 'Copland' showed he is far more than a one dimensional action man.

He is in good shape, and I feel that this, and Rambo 4 will suprise a lot of people both in their quality, and their tone.

But Rambo 4 is about his teaching his skills to a new generation of soldiers... If not done well, hopefully with Sly having to goin and save them with a MG42 and hand granades, it might go belly up.

Nope, that was the script treatment floating around years ago when Tarantino wanted to get on board with it. The pre production story finalised is that he is Back in the states living in a national park as a ranger of some description, with a family and some semblance of peace. His daughter is then kidnapped by a racist gang/cult (she will be part American indian remember), and he has to dust off his survival knife one more time to rescue her.
Stallone has said that it will be more like 'Deliverance' than what we instantly think of as 'Rambo', with a lot more at stake, and gritty upclose tension, rather than million bullet explosion fests.