Filming also featured new special effects and bona fide, groundbreaking sport methods and equipment, some of which were years removed from public use.

In 1985, Russian boxer Ivan Drago arrives in the United States from the Soviet Union with his wife, his trainers and his manager, Nicoli Koloff.

Motivated by patriotism and a desire to step back in the ring, former heavyweight champion Apollo Creed challenges Drago to an exhibition fight.

[11] Apollo enters the ring in an over-the-top patriotic entrance with James Brown performing "Living in America", complete with showgirls.

Rocky travels to the Soviet Union without his wife Adrian due to her disapproval of the match, setting up his training base in a remote cabin in Krasnogourbinsk with only Duke and Paulie to accompany him.

To prepare for the match, Drago uses high-tech equipment, a team of trainers and doctors monitoring his every movement, and regular doses of anabolic steroids.

In the final round, with both fighters exhausted, Rocky seizes an opening to unleash a series of blows that KOs Drago, avenging Apollo's death.

Rocky ends his speech by wishing his son a Merry Christmas and raises his arms into the air in victory as the crowd applauds.

Appearing as themselves are singer James Brown and commentators Stu Nahan, Warner Wolf, R. J. Adams, Barry Tompkins and Al Bandiero.

The small farm where Rocky lived and trained was in Jackson Hole,[13] and Grand Teton National Park was used for filming many of the outdoor sequences in the Soviet Union.

Sylvester Stallone has stated that the original punching scenes filmed between him and Dolph Lundgren in the first portion of the fight are completely authentic.

Stallone, suffering from labored breathing and a blood pressure over 200, was flown from the set in Vancouver, British Columbia to Saint John's Regional Medical Center in Santa Monica, California and was forced into intensive care for eight days.

[14] Producer Winkler describes the exact same event in his autobiography, observing not Lundgren, rather, "Sly took a punch from a stand-in fighter and ended up in the emergency room with his blood pressure dangerously high.

"[15] Additionally, Stallone has stated that Lundgren nearly forced Carl Weathers to quit during the filming of the Apollo vs. Drago exhibition fight.

The event caused a four-day work stoppage, while Weathers was talked back into the part and Lundgren agreed to tone down his aggressiveness.

[17][18] In 2012, Olympians Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte noted that the training sequences in Rocky IV inspired them to use a cabin similar to what the resourceful Balboa utilized in the film.

Songs from the movie include "Living in America" by James Brown, as well as music by John Cafferty ("Heart's on Fire", featuring Vince DiCola), Survivor, Kenny Loggins, and Robert Tepper.

Europe's hit "The Final Countdown", written earlier in the decade by lead singer Joey Tempest, is often incorrectly stated as being featured in the film due to its similarity to DiCola's "Training Montage.

According to singer Peter Cetera, he originally wrote his best-selling solo single "Glory of Love" as the end title for this film, but was passed over by United Artists, and was instead subsequently used as the theme for The Karate Kid Part II.

The website's critical consensus states, "Rocky IV inflates the action to absurd heights, but it ultimately rings hollow thanks to a story that hits the same basic beats as the first three entries in the franchise.

It's been a long run, one hit movie after another, but Rocky IV is a last gasp, a film so predictable that viewing it is like watching one of those old sitcoms where the characters never change and the same situations turn up again and again.

"[45] Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film a 3.5 out of 4 stars, and stated in his review, "[Stallone] creates credible villains worthy of his heroic character.

[49] Jeremy Smith, from Polygon, stated: "The triumph of Stallone’s director’s cut — with a pin-sharp focus on Apollo and Rocky’s relationship and its ruthless removal of anything which distracts — is that it not only nails the central message of the film, but the very point of it existing at all (montages aside)".

[47] In her review for Empire, Terri White praised the clearer motivations in the director's cut: "It's a much more sombre context for the film (and goes some way to recontextualising the first three outings) and serves to subdue its worst indulgences.

Without the gills of excess breathing quite so hard, the story of Rocky then pledging to fight Drago in Russia on Christmas Day becomes clear: it's not about solving the Cold War or even a simple revenge yarn wrapped in bombastic patriotism.

[51] Scholars note that the film's strong yet formulaic structure emphasizes the power of the individual, embodied by Rocky, the prototypically American hero who is inventive, determined, and idealistic.

[53][54] Writer/director Stallone highlights the nationalistic overtones of the Balboa–Drago fight throughout the film, such as when Drago's wife claims the United States is filled with "threats of violence" to her husband.

In the article, it is claimed that she objected to the character Ivan Drago, saying that the film uses him to vilify the Russian people: "In the movie Rocky IV there is not a word of truth about the Soviet Union.

"[57] Russia Beyond quoted an alleged American journalist saying: "What this film can be blamed for is the constant and shameless pressure on the audience to treat the Russians and their government with contempt, pity and disgust".

The plot involves Drago's son Viktor fighting Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan) for his title as a way of his father Ivan regaining some of the prestige he lost after his defeat in Rocky IV.