I Play Rocky review: A strong crowd pleaser that can't exist without Rocky

I Play Rocky is an incredible feel-good movie, and it's a very, very good one. I strongly recommend it. I still can't decide one thing, though: is it a good movie in its own right, or is it riding the incredible coattails of 1976's Rocky?

And who cares? It's an amazing behind-the-scenes look at how that film was made. If you don't know that story, it's incredible. I didn't even know the whole story myself.

I Play Rocky is about taking your shot, not just becoming a famous actor

You might wonder why anyone should care about someone becoming a famous actor. This is a story about taking your shot and believing in yourself. It also shows that you need the luck of finding someone who's going to give you that shot.

People like to vilify executives. Most producers would have said this isn't going to work out, that he won't sell the script without starring in it, and asked what the next script in the stack was. But these guys went all the way. I do wish Sylvester Stallone wasn't fighting with the Winkler family about the rights these days.

Why the Rocky story shows how Hollywood should work

I've often held up The Offer as a great example of how Hollywood should work, and this is another great example. The film shows that The Godfather kind of inspired the studio's willingness to take a chance on Rocky.

This was before algorithms. In Hollywood now, nobody will take a risk, or it's very rare, so it's great to see a time when that's what Hollywood was all about. It's very exciting. I hope maybe we can get back to that.

Peter Farrelly's I Play Rocky borrows its great moment from Rocky

Peter Farrelly did a very good job directing this movie, "a very competent job." But there's a catch. In the film, an actor whose name I forget says that if a movie is really good, it'll have that magic moment where it goes from good to great. Here, they decide to make that moment the one in Rocky.

I appreciate it. It's like reading a film paper. But what's the moment that makes this movie great? "It doesn't have its own moment."

So it's a crowd pleaser and a feel-good movie, but "it doesn't exist without Rocky." Even so, it's a very, very good movie, and I strongly recommend it.