The art of the training montage

Overlook the training montage sequence in Monkey Man at your own pop culture and movie peril. Kid (Dev Patel) aims to avenge his mother’s death by vanquishing the police chief (Sikander Kher as Rana Singh) who raped and killed her and the false spiritual guru (Makarand Deshpande as Baba Shakti) who ordered the massacre of Kid’s village in India. In a dense, tense, and pivotal 90-second sequence, Kid works himself into fighting shape by punching a rice sack repeatedly—for how many days, we don’t know—as a wizened elder provides a thrumming beat on a tabla.

Patel, who not only stars in Monkey Man, but co-wrote, co-produced, and directed the thrilling actioner, massaged the scene into the production’s piece de resistance. Legendary Grammy-winning musician/actor Zakir Hussain plays the wizened elder and taps the tabla. Patel also intercut protest footage, bits featuring other characters, and shots of Kid punching the rice sack more and more, becoming increasingly proficient, until—in a frenzy of editing and sound design—rice bursts out of the sack. And… boom, Kid is really ready to rumble.

The Monkey Man scene follows a long line of great training montages in film. Identifying the montage that launched the phenomenon is no easy task, in part because of the many ways characters train in movies. Countless old Westerns depicted antagonists and protagonists alike readying for their showdowns. Do they count? Let’s consider Robert De Niro’s iconic “You talking to me?” scene in Taxi Driver, which opened in February 1976. Travis Bickle does push-ups, hits the gun range, practices drawing his guns and knife, and—now both buff and ready to go all vigilante in NYC—engages in his famous conversation in front of a mirror. It sort of checks all the boxes.

Other movies that boast great training montages include Footloose (1984), Full Metal Jacket (1987), Hero and the Terror (1988), Bloodsport (1988), Kickboxer (1989), Cool Runnings (1993), Mulan (1998), Wet Hot American Summer (2001), Enough (2002), Team America: World Police (2004), Batman Begins (2005), and The Fighter (2010). Who can forget Kevin Bacon teaching Chris Penn now to dance in Footloose? Or, amusingly, Jean-Claude Van Damme serving tea, blindfolded, to his trainer and his wife in the middle of the Bloodsport montage? Liam Neeson, in Batman Begins, warns Christian Bale, “Death does not wait for you to be ready,” then puts Bale through hell. In Cool Runnings, John Candy sends Jamaica’s would-be Olympic bobsledders through their training paces, which include sitting together in a bathtub, sliding down hills of sand, and time spent in the freezer of an ice cream truck.

Disney’s animated Mulan delivers a feel-good montage that calls for our heroine to climb a pole, shoot arrows, etc. What makes it unique, aside from the gorgeous animation? The accompanying song, “I’ll Make A Man Out Of You,” is performed by former teen idol Donny Osmond, who provides the singing voice of Li Shang. In the Enough montage, Jennifer Lopez trains to protect herself from her abusive husband. So, she dodges punches and kicks, and learns this factoid: “It takes twice as much energy to swing and miss as to swing and hit.” R. Lee Ermey crudely and cruelly transforms Vincent D’Onofrio into a hulking monster in Full Metal Jacket, but pushes D’Onofrio so hard that he later breaks, with tragic consequences. And yes, we’ll get to the Team America: World Police montage in a little while.

But another movie that arrived in theaters several months after Taxi Driver set the bar and established the template for all the training montages mentioned above: Rocky. Over the course of two minutes and 45 seconds, as Bill Conti’s soaring “Gonna Fly Now” blares, Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) runs along Philly’s seedier streets, does sit-ups and one-handed push-ups, and pulverizes a slab of beef in a meat locker, much of it with Mickey (Burgess Meredith) gruffly urging him on. Finally, in a burst of speed, Rocky races up the 72 steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and then—in slow motion—triumphantly raises his arms into the air, surrounded by no one. Nearly 50 years later, you still can’t help but cheer for the Italian Stallion.

Stallone, after Rocky won Best Picture at the Academy Awards, assumed full control of the franchise, starring in five more Rocky installments between 1979 and 2006. He then executive produced the three Creed spin-offs, assuming a supporting role as Rocky, who more or less becomes Mickey to Adonis “Donnie” Creed (Michael B. Jordan), the son of Apollo Creed, in Creed and Creed II.

Sentimental Rocky fans love the montages—yes, montages—in Rocky II. It starts with Adrian (Talia Shire) waking up from a coma and smiling as she whispers to her ambivalent husband, “Win… win.” Cue the ringside pealing and Rocky promptly doing one-handed push-ups, smashing metal in a junkyard, skipping rope, sparring, bouncing with a huge log on his shoulders, and chasing (and catching) a chicken. We also get another Rocky run through Philly. This time, fans cheer him on the street, and as he approaches the Philadelphia Museum of Art, he’s joined by hundreds of kids, who then surround him once he reaches the top of the steps. Once again, cue the slo-mo!

Following Mickey’s death in Rocky III, Apollo Creed becomes Rocky’s trainer and pushes his frenemy to reclaim “the eye of the tiger.” It’s fun and playful and sweaty, but if we’re being honest it feels in certain moments like Apollo can outrun, outdance, and outbox Rocky. And it’s super-sweet (and super-sweaty) and more than cheesy when Rocky and Apollo bro hug in the ocean at the end of the sequence.

That brings us to Rocky IV. Hulking, merciless, steroid-enhanced Russian boxer Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren) kills an unretired Apollo Creed in the ring, prompting Rocky to give up his title to battle Drago in an unsanctioned bout in Moscow. And here comes a great montage—in fact, the best one in a seriously montage-heavy movie—that cuts back and forth between a bearded Rocky’s low-tech sessions (lifting rocks and a rickshaw, climbing a mountain) and Drago’s state-of-the-art preparations (involving monitors, fancy weight machines, and the injecting of a mysterious substance). The only bummer? The accompanying song, “Heart’s On Fire,” by John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band, aged horribly.

Rocky V, arguably the least popular entry in the entire franchise, also features a lackluster training montage. Since the movie focuses more on Rocky’s protégé, Tommy Gunn (Tommy Morrison), than on Rocky, it makes sense that the montage does, too. It’s not terribly compelling, even with a quick run up the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s steps and a few shots of Rocky Jr. trying to emulate his dad. Stallone’s late son, Sage (who died in 2012), played the role.

Rocky Balboa centers on a widowed, 60-year-old Rocky getting back into fighting shape for an exhibition match against a boxer with something to prove. After a fiery go-get-’em speech from Duke (Tony Burton), writer-director-star Stallone gives the people what they want: an old-school, greatest hits montage that includes a new dog (Punchy) as a running partner, familiar gray sweatpants and sweatshirt, the drinking of raw eggs and punching of raw meat, and a run up the museum steps, punctuated by a triumphant fist in the air, all accompanied by Conti’s classic “Gonna Fly Now” music.

Moving on to the Creed trilogy, writer-director Ryan Coogler takes a very different approach to the training montage in the first film. In slow-burn style, Adonis cares for a cancer-stricken Rocky while prepping for a fight. The sequence even begins in Rocky’s hospital room. Soon enough, though, Adonis is running along the streets of Philly, accompanied by guys on dirt bikes and ATVs, all to the tune of Meek Mill’s “Lord Knows”/“Fighting Harder.”

In Creed II’s montage, a much healthier Rocky puts Adonis through strenuous workouts (pulling tires, running on a dusty road) in the middle of nowhere (a California desert), while Ivan Drago readies his son to face off against Adonis.

Finally, the Michael B. Jordan-directed Creed III training montage opens with Adonis flashing back to bad experiences before summoning the wherewithal to prepare for his next fight. To do so, he rolls a giant tire, climbs ropes, crushes assorted sparring partners (among the Drago’s son), and delivers a primal scream just above the Hollywood sign.

While we probably should end this article here, we can’t—and we won’t. Trey Parker and Matt Stone brilliantly mocked training montages in Team America: World Police. As a little ditty called “Montage” plays, actor-turned-counterterrorist Gary (voiced by Parker) fires a machine gun, runs on a treadmill, learns karate, etc. Among the hysterical—and accurate—lyrics: “In anything, if you want to go from just a beginner to a pro, you need a montage. Even Rocky had a montage. Always fade out in a montage. If you fade out it seems like more time has passed… in a montage.”