'I Play Rocky' Review: A Feel-Good Underdog Story That Lacks a Knockout Punch
By Dan Bremner - October 18, 2026
Peter Farrelly’s underdog Hollywood drama chronicling the underdog story it took to get the all-time boxing classic Rocky made in the 1970s. As a massive fan of the original Rocky (one of my favourite sports films) but not a fan of crowd-pleasing biopics, I was a bit wary of this, especially given Farrelly’s track record. It was also disappointing to see the London Film Festival give I Play Rocky their “Surprise Film” slot this year, a release that’s out in a few weeks and getting wide showings. It just seemed a bit of a waste when it could have been The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth, You Can See Everything, or even Ali G: Who Iz I?. What I will say is, never buy a ticket from fellow collegues, as you will get to your seat and find someone already sat there with an identical ticket — BFI ticketting at its finest — leading to Larry David-esque public humiliation to get it sorted .
Even with this underwhelming and safe choice, there was something incredibly meta about the screening. Much like the initial reaction to the idea of Rocky by the MGM producers, the audience groaned audibly and many left, but by the end the crowd was completely won over by I Play Rocky. Which is exactly what this sets out to do: it’s a crowd-pleaser, nothing more, nothing less. I’m not made of stone, but even with all my reservations about the thoroughly stale “Wikipedia-rundown” biopic genre, I still managed to have a decent enough time with this inoffensive, unchallenging and mostly forgettable true-life underdog story.
Anthony Ippolito delivers a career-defining, transformative lead performance as pre-stardom Sylvester Stallone. He captures the physical likeness, complete with the droopy eyes, jutting lips, skin tone, hulking presence along with the distinctive low, gravelly “mush-mouth” voice and speech patterns, the hangdog expressions and that stubborn, dogged personality. It’s far more than simple mimicry, it’s an authentic inhabitation of the character that makes you forget you’re watching an actor. It’s the kind of turn that feels awards-worthy and potentially star-making.
The supporting performances are a real mixed bag, ranging from solid to outright cartoonish. Some of the key players land their roles with the right amount of period flavour and restraint, while others feel like they’re performing in a completely different, broader film. Tracy Letts stands out as Sandy Maddox, but not for the right reasons, a very silly and over-the-top fictional MGM executive who doubts Stallone at every turn. Stephan James is a blast as the cocky motor-mouthed Carl Weathers, Kiki Seto captures the sweetness of Talia Shire, Anna Sophia Robb is underserved as Stallone's devoted wife Sasha Czack, Jay Duplass is clearly having fun as the arrogant work-for-hire director of Rocky John G. Avildsen, Matt Dillon brings casual abuse as Frank Stallone Sr. Lastly Toby Kebbell and P. J. Byrne makes for a solid pairing as Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler, the two MGM producers who put their reputations and houses on the line to help Stallone see his vision through.
There are a few historical inaccuracies that niggle. The film claims Stallone didn’t have an agent at the time, when he very much did, producers first met him as a favour to his representation. A couple of other details around the exact sequence of the script offers and how completely alone he supposedly was in the negotiations are smoothed over or simplified for drama. Of course it’s a film and not a documentary, so complete accuracy was never on the table, but these little cheats do cheapen the underdog story slightly when you know the real version was already dramatic enough without the extra lone-wolf myth-making.
The technical and production elements are solid, even if visually, it's unambitious at best, with a slightly flat and anonymous look that would feel right at home on streaming rather than a major theatrical release. There’s a period-appropriate recreation of 1970s New York, Philadelphia and Los Angeles, the costumes feel right, and the recreation of the Rocky production itself is handled cleanly. Bill Conti’s themes are used effectively, and Peter Gamble’s screenplay is well-structured enough to build momentum from Stallone’s early struggles through to the film’s creation and eventual triumph.
There’s also an entertaining look at the mechanics of Hollywood filmmaking. It functions as a love letter to the uncertainty, improvisation and strange magic of low-budget filmmaking. You get the deal negotiations, the budget constraints that forced creative solutions (non-union shoots, the early use of Steadicam for the iconic Philadelphia steps sequence), the on-set challenges involving injuries, schedule pressures, improvising key scenes with Burgess Meredith’s Mickey and the shoestring production that paradoxically helped make Rocky special. In places it ranks as one of the better narrative films about the making of a specific film.
The underdog/inspirational storytelling works and deliberately mirrors Rocky itself. The film turns the real-life saga of Stallone writing the script in a matter of days, refusing lucrative offers (up to hundreds of thousands of dollars, despite his poverty) so he could star, and fighting industry-wide scepticism into its own rousing triumph-of-the-underdog narrative. It matches a lot of the emotional uplift and crowd-pleasing spirit of the original, leaning hard on perseverance, self-belief and going the distance against impossible odds.
The problems are the ones you’d expect from this kind of film. The tone is overly sentimental, schmaltzy and frequently manipulative. It leans heavily into sentimental excess and a slight tackiness, with a shameless canonisation of Stallone that borders on sainthood. Emotional beats arrive predictably on schedule, underlined by an overbearingly saccharine score that swells under every tender or triumphant moment until it starts to feel sickly. While it also suffers from that cringe-worthy “Bohemian Rhapsody” style of producers saying things like “A boxing movie in 1976? You must be joking. NO ONE is going to see that”. But wouldn't you believe it, those smug producers are shown wrong by the end.
There’s a noticeable lack of internal drama, emotional depth or real pathos. The film is light on genuine emotion and psychologically shallow. Stallone is portrayed as nearly perfect, his biggest “flaw” being mild insecurity, with little internal conflict or complexity. Psychological stakes and traumas are delivered as shorthand soundbites rather than explored. Aside from the occasional moment involving his dog Butkus, it can feel emotionally vacant, relying on the original Rocky to do most of the heavy lifting. And even then, you are spending a lot of time seeing moments from the original recreated, to the point you start asking yourself: “Why am I not just watching Rocky right now?”
It also relies heavily on fan service and “visual karaoke” recreations. Iconic scenes such as the steps run, the ice rink, the meat locker, the training montage are recreated dutifully but often dully, which makes them feel more like nostalgic pastiche than vital drama. For anyone already familiar with the behind-the-scenes story (or even the 2023 documentary Sly), large stretches can feel redundant or like glorified fan service. As the audience you're meant to clap and cheer for scenes you know are already iconic and ingrained in your memory, just recreated.
I Play Rocky is an inoffensive, crowd-pleasing underdog biopic elevated significantly by Anthony Ippolito’s uncanny and immersive performance as young Stallone, solid period detail and a genuine affection for the pain of low-budget filmmaking. It delivers the expected emotional uplift and mirrors the spirit of Rocky itself, but the sentimental excess, formulaic Wikipedia-style scripting, lack of depth, mixed supporting turns, a few historical cheats and reliance on nostalgic recreations keep I Play Rocky firmly in safe, forgettable territory. A decent time, nothing more.
'I Play Rocky' releases in select cinemas on November 6, with a wider release across UK cinemas following on November 11, 2026.
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Dan Bremner
Writer
Dan is a writer from Guildford with a love for all things genre, schlocky, and thoroughly '80s, and a part-time philanthropist.
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