I Play Rocky… where Anthony Ippolito plays Sylvester Stallone, but while he has the build of a young version of the actor, there’s clearly de-aged Stallone looks being applied to this man’s face, including the eyes.
I first saw this done with 2019’s The Irishman, from Martin Scorsese. I expect back then, it was quite expensive to do this, for the life of Robert De Niro’s character, but 8 years on, the cost should’ve drastically dropped.
For what follows, just how much of this is true, I don’t know, but we get quite a brisk romp through the proceedings, first seeing Stallone using the first name “Mike”, going to work in adult films (showing practically nothing, given it’s a 12A-certificate), then onto a different sort of movies, working in a cinema, taking tickets, alongside ticket seller Sasha (AnnaSophia Robb – Freak Show).
It’s a match made in heaven, but although he wants to be an actor, it’s thanks to Sasha that she puts him on the track of writing screenplays. Thanks to chancing upon a boxing match on TV in a bar, he gets the idea for Rocky, but when suggesting to the film’s potential producers Irwin Winkler (PJ Byrne – Coyote Vs Acme) and Robert Chartoff (Toby Kebbell – Kong: Skull Island), “*I* play Rocky”, they assume he’s joking.
It’s given a $2m budget, but there’s a way round the studio’s insistence of using a top star, in that if the budget is cut to $1m, and as long as they ensure they don’t go even a day over the filming schedule, only then can Stallone play Rocky.
Additional elements include one budding cameraman trialling his steadicam system, to ultimately be used for filming the actor running up the famous steps, at the front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and how even the opening theme to the movie was just a placeholder piece of music.
But what is real and what is Memorex?
Either way, there’s great performances from all concerned, including a smallish role for Matt Dillon as his Dad, although if you do have a strong stomach, I highly recommend his Lars Von Trier movie, The House That Jack Built.
However, while it does have quite a fair bit of humour, which helps everything tick along nicely, the problem is: there’s still no getting away from how I Play Rocky feels like nothing more than a TV movie, especially with the fact that for a film about writing a brilliant screenplay… has such a workmanlike one, as it goes from A to B to C, and so on, with zero surprises.
NOTE: There are both mid- and post-credit scenes, as per my video below.
I Play Rocky is in cinemas now, but isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD. However, once announced, it will appear on the New DVD Blu-ray 3D and 4K releases UK list.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 128 minutes
Release date: November 6th 2026
Studio: Amazon MGM Studios
Aspect ratio: 2.00:1
Rating: 7/10
Director: Peter Farrelly
Producers: Christian Baha, Toby Emmerich, Peter Farrelly, Paul Currie, Michele Weiss
Writer: Peter Gamble
Music: Dave Palmer
Cast:
Sylvester Stallone: Anthony Ippolito
Sasha: AnnaSophia Robb
Irwin Winkler: PJ Byrne
Robert Chartoff: Toby Kebbell
Sandy Maddox: Tracy Letts
John Avildsen: Jay Duplass
Frank Stallone Sr.: Matt Dillon
Talia Shire: Kiki Seto
Burgess Meredith: Robert Morgan
Rick – Bartender: Steve Sweeney
Burt Young: Scot Teller
Diana Lewis: J Nycole
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.