Rocky is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, and the Sylvester Stallone flick is not just one of the best boxing movies ever made — its iconography is familiar to people who weren’t even alive in 1976. We’re about to get even more familiar with the story, thanks to Peter Farrelly’s I Play Rocky, a biographical drama about the making of Rocky, when it hits the 2026 movie calendar. Reviews are in after it premiered at Toronto International Film Festival, and if you weren’t talking about I Play Rocky before, you will be now.
There’s a lot of buzz around Anthony Ippolito, who was cast as young Sylvester Stallone. He certainly nails Stallone’s voice and swagger in the I Play Rocky trailer, and his performance is a big reason why JoBlo’s Chris Bumbray calls the upcoming drama a “knockout.” The critic rates the film a “Great” 9 out of 10, calling it a “loving homage” to Stallone and Rocky Balboa:
What helps is that Anthony Ippolito is uncanny as Stallone. While I knew right away that he would capture Sly from a physical standpoint, I wondered if he’d be able to get the vibe or his intelligence, but he nails the part from the first frame. You forget you are watching a performance, with Ippolito even more impressive when Farrelly restages some of Rocky’s most iconic moments, which are recreated with exhaustive attention to detail.
Pete Hammond of Deadline says I Play Rocky — like the movie it’s based on — might just inspire people to take up the sport of boxing. In addition to being possibly the best sports movie, Hammond says it’s one of the best and most entertaining films ever made about moviemaking. He continues:
[I Play Rocky] is a winner in every way, a movie that in fact manages to carry the same emotional wallop as the original Rocky and containing a performance from Anthony Ippolito that is so uncanny I didn’t for a minute think he was anyone but the actual Stallone. It feels like they just used de-aging technology so Stallone could play himself a half-century younger. But make no mistake, Ippolito’s powerful, moving and inspiring portrayal is not mere imitation. This guy inhabits Stallone in every way, delivering an authentic portrait that will blow you away.
Owen Gleiberman of Variety is another critic who just can’t stop singing Anthony Ippolito’s praises. From the physical similarities like the droopy eyes and jutting lips to his voice, Gleiberman says Ippolito fully embodies Sly Stallone at that age:
Ippolito’s impersonation of Stallone’s voice is a miraculous act of channeling. He gets that super-low back-of-the-throat growl, the mush-mouth intonation, the words dripping out like molasses, the sense that his whole personality is a slow-motion amiable grumble. Watching and listening to Anthony Ippolito, we can believe that Sylvester Stallone is standing right in front of us, though the performance is more than just an awesome impersonation. He’s truly playing Stallone — the sweetly stubborn and dogged person he was at the time.
David Rooney of THR says this film is sure to strike a chord with anyone with a nostalgic love for Rocky, with the movie’s most iconic moments being recreated with reverential respect. Some of those scenes are more effective than others, but Anthony Ippolito’s performance overrides all complaints. Rooney writes:
The element that holds the movie together is Ippolito, who nails the garbled, rumbling diction, hangdog expression and hulking physicality of Stallone while never losing sight of his insecurities at this unproven point in his career. I Play Rocky repurposes most of its emotional uplift from the movie within the movie, but anyone with fond memories of the boxing drama — perhaps those who first saw it back in the day most of all — will feel a surge of elation from the moment Bill Conti’s theme music is folded in.
As Rocky Balboa knows, though, you can’t win 'em all. Chase Hutchinson of The Wrap calls I Play Rocky a “misfire,” writing that it hits all the expected beats but doesn’t instill them with any greater life. Hutchinson says the film is “tiresome more than compelling,” and viewers will wish they’d just watched Rocky instead. His I Play Rocky review reads:
Unfortunately, while the real Sly found that emotional depth in Rocky, the fictional version of him, even when pushed, never does here. Instead, what we get is a film that’s broadly crowd-pleasing, having fun with some playful jokes about filmmaking here and there, though without a cinematic soul it can call its own. It never uncovers that deeper ‘emotional why,’ reducing the unconventional success story of Stallone to something aggressively conventional and without a greater emotional punch.
I Play Rocky has a 75% Rotten Tomatoes score as of this writing, and it’s clear from the above reviews that Anthony Ippolito will continue to be someone we hear about in the lead-up to the movie’s release. We’ve still got some time before that happens, as Peter Farrelly's drama hits theaters in limited release on Friday, November 6.
In the meantime, if you want to refresh yourself on the Sylvester Stallone classic, Rocky is available to stream with a Paramount+ subscription.
