I Play Rocky (2026) Review
Have you ever wondered what the backstory was that led to the creation of Rocky (1976)? No, well, too bad, because now we have a movie that explains what happened to that film and how it got made. This movie is one I heard about from a friend of mine who saw it at a test screening several months ago and loved it; the audience loved it and said it was an absolute crowd-pleaser. It premiered at TIFF to glowing reviews, so I heard a bunch of praise about the movie. For whatever reason, I just wasn’t super excited about the movie. The trailers didn’t really look interesting to me. I was able to see it at an early secret screening. What did I think about the movie? Here’s my review!
The Good
I won’t beat around the bush here, but I Play Rocky absolutely won me over and worked for me. So much so that it’s an early contender for one of 2026’s biggest surprises. As I said earlier, I wasn’t really super excited about this movie, and almost instantly, this movie won me over. What works so well about this movie is that it’s just a traditional and good ol’ fashioned crowd pleaser. Rocky (1976) is the ultimate underdog story and the template that all other underdog movies and sports movies follow; they made a movie about the underdog story, and this story is an underdog story. There are many obstacles that Sylvester Stallone himself had to face, as well as the production as a whole. Because the movie does such a great job of setting the conflicts up and the “antagonists” of the film up, as you move into the back half and you see them starting to actually film the movie and you see Sylvester achieving his dreams, it’s so satisfying. There are multiple points where my audience reacted positively to certain lines of dialogue where the underdog starts to get the upper hand in these situations. Despite the audience knowing where this movie is going and the success of Rocky (1976) and Sylvester Stallone’s career, it’s still great to see the victories happen, and when you see them recreating these iconic scenes from the movie, it puts a smile on your face.
So much of why the movie works is because of the cast. Everybody in here is really fun and embodies their characters nicely. The big one to talk about here is Anthony Ippolito as Stallone, and from the trailers, I had a lot of skepticism about him and his performance. Because of the way that he sounds, he sounds like he’s playing Rocky Balboa instead of playing Stallone, who is playing Balboa. But in the movie, he won me over. He was very good, and the weird speech pattern bothered me at first. A few scenes into the movie, the accent didn’t bother me. He’s in almost every single scene of the movie, so if he doesn’t work, then the movie doesn’t work. Since I really dug the movie and was a big fan of it, I really liked Ipploito’s performance. But everybody else in the movie did a really solid job. It’s kind of funny that he’s playing Stallone here because he played Al Pacino in The Offer, a TV show a few years back. The fact he’s an actor that look both like Pacino and Stallone is kind of crazy. But as far as this movie goes, he’s really good, and I bought into him. Some standouts are P.J. Byrne and Toby Kebbell as the film producers trying to get Rocky made. Both of them are stealing scenes they’re in; Byrne in particular, as moments where he doesn’t have to say anything, but his reactions to certain things are absolutely hilarious, and he also does get some really funny lines in here too. The two of them play really off of one another, and you like whenever they’re on screen together. The other fun one would be Stephen James as Carl Weathers; now he’s not in the movie a whole lot. He’s maybe in 10 minutes of the movie, but some of his scenes are so entertaining. He’s able to capture the mannerisms of Carl Weathers (RIP) really well. As I said, everybody in the movie is really good, and everybody has their moment to shine and be a standout.
This goes back to what I just alluded to, but the movie is surprisingly very funny. There’s a really nice, sharp sense of humor throughout the movie; I think it’s most prevalent in the back half of the movie. I’ll talk about this later, but the film is able to balance two different tones really well. The second half of the movie is a lot more fun and lightweight compared to the first half, and because of that, the humor is able to flow naturally and organically. Everybody in the movie gets a line that’s really funny and had my audience laughing out loud. There’s a scene with the producers and Stallone in his apartment that’s shown in the trailers, and there’s a reaction from Byrne followed by a line in the movie. That moment is the funniest moment in the movie for me; it’s such a simple reaction and line, but how it’s delivered is great. James as Carl Weathers gets another really funny line after Stallone tells him this new piece of information in a screening room. But there are so many other great jokes, whether that’s a verbal joke or a simple reaction from a character. No matter what it is, it’s really funny, and all of the humor landed for me. Between the movie’s humor and the crowd-pleasing moments, this is a really fun movie to see with a packed audience on the big screen.
Another thing I touched on earlier was that the film is able to balance the tone and make both parts of the movie feel cohesive and like one movie. The first half of the movie is basically showing the life of Sylvester Stallone and him coming up as an actor and the struggles he’s had. The first half isn’t super dark persay, but it’s darker in tone and what happens in terms of what happened compared to the trailers. The trailers showcase the more uplifting side of the movie that’s more present in the back half. Speaking of that, the second half of the movie delivers more of the crowd-pleasing moments that are more fun and make the movie super entertaining. I was very curious as it was transitioning how the film will balance these tones and whether the movie will feel like one movie or not, and I’ll say yes. The movie is able to balance the tones and use the first half to establish the hardships of Stallone’s life and have him meet his wife and explore his relationship with his father. There’s some other more emotional stuff that happens in the movie that Stallone has to go through. But as we get into the uplifting side of the story and see the movie come together, it’s really good and is able to pay that stuff off. I was confused going into the movie because I knew some emotional stuff that Stallone went through that wasn’t touched on in the trailers, but the trailers presented the more uplifting side of the movie, so maybe that’s why the trailers didn’t really work for me.
Finally, this movie will win the award for the most inspiring movie of 2026. It’s a movie all about a guy pursuing his dreams and overcoming the obstacles that he has to go through to get them. Even though it's a movie about filmmaking and scriptwriting, I felt inspired to do a lot of that myself. I want to be a filmmaker and make movies, and in particular write scripts, so watching this movie inspired me in several ways. Even without the movies, there’s a great central idea of chasing your dreams and wanting to find success that I think anybody can relate to and enjoy even if you’re not a filmmaker or have no interest in watching movies. That’s a key piece in why I think it works so well as a crowd pleaser, it’s a movie that’s meant to inspire people and I think it did that for a lot of people and when it does hit theaters I think it’ll do an even more of a great job inspiring people.
The Bad
The big thing here is I felt like parts of the movie were reduced a bit too much. It only happened a few times; the movie is 2 hours and 8 minutes long, and I think it does work at that length. But there are a few key moments that happen in here that the movie seems to gloss over and forget about. For example, Stallone’s dad plays an important role in the movie, and it helps us understand who Stallone is more. There’s some payoff with him in the third act that I felt like could’ve and should’ve hit harder and been more emotional. But the movie doesn’t let that moment breathe enough, and the moment felt like it should’ve had more room to breathe and let the audience really lock into what’s going on. Once the filming of Rocky starts, there are some ideas that the wife character throws around about the studio trying to sabotage the film. It’s these really interesting ideas that do tie into the personality of some of these characters, but it doesn’t really go anywhere. It’s stated, but there’s no depth to that idea. Another one is an example involving Stallone’s dog; if you know the story, then you know what I’m talking about. It should be this really emotional moment, and there are emotions that do arise from you, but it didn’t feel like enough given the circumstances. There’s a few other examples in the movie where it there’s an interesting, an interesting thought presented that doesn’t really go anywhere. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a version of this movie that’s 15-20 minutes longer, exploring some of these ideas. It’s not a super big issue; it didn’t drastically pull me out of the movie. But it is something that I noticed, and I wish there were some more depth at points in the movie.
Also, the film did take a little while for it to fully connect with me, it took about 40-45 minutes for me to onboard with the movie. Once it started getting into the negotiating process about getting the script for Rocky, that’s when the film really kicked into higher gear for me, and I became invested in the film. It’s not that the first act of the movie was slow, bad, or boring, but the first act was setting up everything for the rest of the film to have that great payoff. The payoff is so great that I think it makes the first act better because everything that was set up with the character dynamics and the challenges is paid off. But the first act not being the most engaging is something that I do think hurt the movie, and I did feel like with the first act, it could’ve been condensed a bit. There are a few too many scenes of the studio executives doubting the film and Stallone having conversations with his wife about not giving up. I know I said that maybe the film could’ve used a few extra minutes in the back half; I think the film could’ve lost a few extra minutes in the first half.
Final Thoughts: Overall, I really dug I Play Rocky, and I thought it was a great time at the movies. Rocky is one of the best sports movies of all time, as it's the ultimate underdog story, and they made an underdog movie about the ultimate underdog. This is one of 2026’s best movies and one of its best crowd pleasers. It’s also the most inspiring movie of 2026, so overall, this was a great movie that I loved. If you’re not super into Rocky (1976) or the franchise, I’d still recommend checking this movie out, as it’s a total blast and anybody can enjoy it.
The Score: 8.9/10 (B+)
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