I Play Rocky tells how Stallone bet everything to star in his own script

Every '80s kid knows the legend, even if they never saw a documentary about it. A broke, unknown actor writes a boxing script, a studio wants it, and he refuses to sell unless he gets to play the lead. Now that story is a movie.

I Play Rocky, from Amazon MGM Studios, opens in select theaters on November 6 and expands nationwide on November 20. The timing is deliberate: it lands roughly 50 years after the original Rocky hit theaters in 1976.

Who's making it

Peter Farrelly directs. Yes, the Dumb and Dumber guy, who later won Best Picture with Green Book. Peter Gamble wrote the script.

Anthony Ippolito plays young Sylvester Stallone. He previously played a young Al Pacino in The Offer, so he's built a little niche playing '70s Hollywood legends before they got famous. The supporting cast recreates the people who made Rocky happen:

• AnnaSophia Robb as Sasha Czack, Stallone's wife at the time
• Matt Dillon as Frank Stallone Sr., his father
• P.J. Byrne and Toby Kebbell as producers Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff
• Jay Duplass as director John G. Avildsen
• Stephan James as Carl Weathers
• Tracy Letts as studio executive Sandy Maddox

Stallone himself is not involved with the film. That's worth knowing going in, because it means this is someone else's version of his story.

What the critics said at Toronto

The movie premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 12. Reaction has been positive overall, with real dissent.

Christopher Schobert at The Film Stage called it a crowd-pleaser and singled out Ippolito for a performance that avoids doing a cheap Stallone impression. He also praised the recreation of the Philadelphia shoot, and noted that Butkus, Stallone's bullmastiff, steals his scenes. His complaints: the look is flat, closer to a streaming movie than a big-screen one, and the film takes liberties with the real story, some of which contradict what Stallone said in his Netflix documentary Sly.

Not everyone was sold. ScreenDaily's Robert Daniels was negative, arguing that it restages famous moments without the heart of the original. As of this writing, Rotten Tomatoes showed 64% positive from a small batch of 11 reviews, which is too few to read much into.

Should you go?

If you grew up running up stairs humming the Bill Conti theme, you're the target audience. Just go in knowing it's a dramatized take without Stallone's input. And if you want his side of things, watch Sly first, then compare notes.

It's also a perfect excuse for a rewatch of the original. The original Rocky on Blu-ray holds up better than you'd think.