At first, I thought that this movie was another victim of the ’70s trend toward badly-paced movies. After all, the characters are still introducing themselves as late as halfway into the movie, Rocky doesn’t really start training until roughly the 75-minute mark and the training montage (a requisite for the series, I understand) doesn’t come until half an hour before the end. For what’s supposed to be the granddaddy of all underdog movies, this movie just didn’t fit the structure that I’ve become so inured to.

But at some point, it finally hit me: If this was an underdog story, there would be a lot more matches. A lot more emphasis would be put on the training. We would see the sympathetic rookie’s development expressed entirely through fights and training sessions as he works up to his bout against the unsympathetic jackass, whom he would inevitably defeat. That may have been the format inspired by Rocky and it may have been what the Rocky series eventually became, but it’s not Rocky.

No, this is not an underdog movie. It’s a slice-of-life movie that happens to be about an underdog.

In this movie, character development is king. The screenplay (written by Sylvester Stallone himself, by the by) takes enormous time and care toward establishing its characters in a way that feels natural. Take Rocky himself, for instance. From the start, it’s clear that Rocky is not exactly the brightest crayon in the box, yet he’s still very charming in his own dumb way. His great sincerity and relative lack of intelligence means that he has a tendency to constantly run his mouth early on, making for some wonderful opportunities to slip in exposition on his backstory. Thus, by the time Rocky really starts training, I was rooting for him because I’d gotten to know and like him.

For a more obvious example, consider that famous scene in which Rocky climbs the museum stairs. The first time he does it, he’s struggling for breath and barely makes it to the top. The second time, he practically flies up the steps and has enough energy left over for a few victory laps around the top. It’s concrete proof of how much stronger he’s become. It’s uplifting. It’s beautiful. It’s character development done right.

Now, let’s look at Adrian, his love interest played by Talia Shire. At the movie’s outset, I kept wondering just what Rocky saw in this girl. Lo and behold, the movie was smart enough to address this obvious question, with Rocky basically saying “I dunno, she’s got gaps, I got gaps, together we fill gaps.” What he’s trying to say is that their respective faults complement each other and he couldn’t be more right. Adrian’s a shy girl who hides her pretty face, goes with the flow and barely says a word. Rocky, by contrast, always speaks his mind and spends most of his working hours shirtless. But when they first kissed, I thought I actually saw sparks flying out of the screen.

From that moment on, Adrian and Rocky visibly change each other. It’s wonderful to watch Adrian as she slowly comes out of her shell, showing her beauty, talking more, being open with her feelings and growing a backbone. Rocky, meanwhile, becomes much wiser and more introspective as he’s given something to ground himself. In Adrian, he has someone to earn affection from and thus, something to fight for. On a completely different note, their relationship is decidedly chaste, with Rocky going so far as to sleep on the couch when Adrian moves in with him. Maybe things were different in the ’70s or maybe it was just to appease the MPAA, but I find it strange (though certainly not problematic) that the relationship didn’t carry so much as a single hint of a sexual nature, especially given Stallone’s previous career.

Next, we have Adrian’s brother Paulie. This man is a rarity in sports movies: He’s a freeloader. Just think about this: In a genre that revolves around a protagonist’s meteoric rise to fame and fortune, how many movies have a character who explicitly latches onto the protagonist’s coattails for his own benefit? I’m racking my brain right now, and the only one I’ve got is that clown from Air Bud. This sort of thing is so common in real life that I’m amazed it isn’t seen in sports movies more often. And this film has two of them.

The other one is Mickey, Rocky’s manager, played by Burgess Meredith. That’s right: Rocky’s mentor is a moocher. Rocky constantly receives open scorn and disrespect from Mickey until the offer for a heavyweight bout comes in. Then, all of a sudden, Mickey comes pleading to be Rocky’s manager. It’s bullshit and Rocky has the good sense to call him out on it, but he takes the offer anyway after chewing him out.

We have Apollo Creed for our bad guy of the movie, but he’s actually given precious little screen time. In fact, aside from the fact that he’s quite full of himself, he doesn’t really seem like that bad a guy. He’s the kind of flashy and egotistic character who’d be a total douchebag in any other movie, yet Carl Weathers somehow manages to avoid crossing that line. It’s a wonderfully subtle touch, serving to reinforce the notion that the film isn’t about Rocky beating Apollo so much as it’s about Rocky taking his once-in-a-lifetime chance and squeezing every last drop he possibly can out of it.

But in my opinion, the true star of this movie — second only to Stallone himself — is Bill Conti. The score to this movie is fantastic from start to finish. It’s used in all the right places and beautifully underlines what’s happening onscreen at all times. I’m especially fond of how Conti uses the central theme. It’s played in various permutations throughout the movie with various rough edges gradually sanded off, mirroring Rocky’s arc until the genuine and iconic Rocky Theme plays over the aforementioned museum stair climb.

And then comes the climax, which may be among the closest things to cinematic perfection that I’ve ever witnessed. The fight was masterfully shot and edited. The choreography was superbly paced and perfectly balanced between the two fighters. The bruising makeup was beautifully ugly and the punches looked like they really fucking hurt. Every single detail — down to the sweat beads flying — added to the tension, desperation and brutality of this fight. It’s worth the Oscar all on its own. Bravo.

Of course, Rocky technically loses the fight by a hair, but that really doesn’t matter. After all, the movie isn’t about a man who achieves greatness so much as it’s about what greatness is and what achieving it really means. In this movie, Rocky aims to be the best boxer he possibly can and he tries encouraging a recalcitrant young girl to improve her life. Which is the greater act? Which is the worse failure?

In our cast, we have a man who wants to profit off the greatness of someone else (Paulie), another man who wants to build his status through contributing to the greatness of someone else (Mickey), a woman who’s happy to sit back and encourage her man whether he wins or not (Adrian), a man who aims for mediocrity and achieves his goal (the bartender), a man who aimed for greatness and achieved it (Apollo) and a man who aimed to be first and came in second (Rocky). We have an entire spectrum of goals, attitudes and abilities here, and yet it is the also-ran that this movie chooses to focus on. The man in second place who is heralded as an equal to the man who came in first, if only because of the discipline and the attitude that got him into the ring and kept him swinging until the bitter end.

I’m not normally a fan of “inspirational” movies, but I just don’t think it’s possible to keep from getting attached to the Italian Stallion. Rocky is a wonderful slice-of-life story about an amazing character surrounded by a cast of likable, believable and sympathetic characters. The acting is phenomenal across the board, the music is staggering and the script has refreshingly little of the Hollywood bullshit we’ve come to expect from underdog stories.

This is the film that every sports movie made since has tried to be. Accept no substitutes. Watch this movie.