‘I Play Rocky’ review: Peter Farrelly turns story behind Sylvester Stallone’s breakout into a sentimental, uninspiring pastiche | Reviews

Dir: Peter Farrelly. US. 2026. 127mins 

I Play Rocky charts how Sylvester Stallone rose from an unrecognized actor with a lock-jaw drawl into writing and starring in one of the most iconic movies of all time – and is about as cheesy as a biopic can get. Relative newcomer Anthony Ippolito stars as the brawny movie star, plays the showbiz striver as he navigates hardscrabble days in New York City and later soul-crushing rejections in Hollywood. A walking piece of pastiche, the uninventive crowd pleaser takes its best cues from Rocky, recreating memorable scenes with little of the movie’s original humanism.

Recreates memorable scenes with little of the movie’s original humanism

Yet one can cannot deny that Peter Farrelly knows how to enhance conventional beats into heart-tugging hits. His biggest success as a solo director remains Green Book (2018), a film that similarly simmered a elaborate history down to its simplest elements and won three Oscars including best film. Premiering as a Toronto Special Presentation, I Play Rocky hopes to achieve that same level of prestige and commercial success by appealing to lovers of the boxing franchise when it’s released in the US on November 13 and in the UK the following week.

As the film opens in the early 1970s, Mike Stallone – as the budding actor is then calling himself – is auditioning for the role of ’Thug Number Two’ in an unknown movie. Summarily lampooned by the casting director because of his mumbling speech, Stallone knows he is the butt of many jokes, and he lives everyday hoping to change the punchline. While homeless in New York City he discovers and adopts a Bullmastiff pup from a trash heap, films adult movies and continues to go on auditions. When he begins working at a movie theater, he meets ticket seller Sasha (AnnaSophia Robb) who, upon being charmed by his awe-schucks demeanor, becomes his biggest supporter. 

Peter Gamble’s screenplay spends over half the movie imposing early biographical details into an origin story. We meet Stallone’s verbally abusive father Frank (Matt Dillon), a failed actor turned hairdresser who insults his son’s supposed dimwittedness. Stallone also explains to Sasha that he goes by Mike because it was tough for him to pronounce his actual name, Sylvester – a moniker Sasha thinks suits him better. The film also makes considerable efforts to note Stallone’s style: he wears tight tank tops, jeans, and a black leather coat. It all amounts to a bid to show that the character of Rocky is a reflection of the actual Stallone. 

Farrelly and editor Sam Seig compress the timeline. Within 16 months Stallone and Sasha are living in Los Angeles where Stallone has written eight unsold scripts and does valet parking at a restaurant. A customer gets him an audition with producers Robert Chartoff (Toby Kebbell) and Irwin Winkler (P.J. Byrne), the men behind They Shoot Horses, Don’t They. Stallone impresses as a promising screenwriter, giving an opening for him to present a boxing script partially inspired by the unlikely 15-round duel between Muhammad Ali vs. Chuck Wepner. Despite Stallone’s scant resume and the protestations of fictional studio head Sandy Maddox (Tracy Letts), he demands to star in the picture.

Ironically, Farrelly doesn’t appear to wholly trust his lead actor. Oftentimes when Ippolito delivers a monologue, the camera remains on his co-stars rather than him. Ippolito does accurately mirror Stallone’s mannerisms and affectations, and lands plenty of good comedic moments like when Carl Weathers (an entertaining Stephan James) auditions to be Apollo Creed, or when John G. Avildsen (Mark Duplass) signs on to direct despite the meager budget and tight shooting schedule. In the meantime, celebrated scenes, like Rocky’s ice rink date between Rocky and Adrian, are dutifully, dully recreated in a film that sees itself as an ode to rag-tag moviemaking. 

I Play Rocky lacks any hint of internal drama. Stallone is depicted as a perfect man whose biggest flaw might be his slight insecurity. Likewise the fact that he created a film about a great white hope humbling a loud-mouthed Black man is not explored. This is not Rocky as art to be examined and parse—what does the film say now?—but as an artifact to be copied. The film rushes to an abrupt and neat ending whose tidiness resembles the overbearingly saccharine score that chirps for the movie’s many sentimental scenes. 

Farrelly’s stylistic, crowd-pleasing homage only works because the bones of what he is reassembling are naturally sturdy. That reality is a credit to Stallone’s demanding work all those decades ago, and an indictment on how little I Play Rocky brings of itself to the cinematic ring.