brood

If you’re a certain age — say, the generation most excited by the prospect of a “Rocky” origin story — you probably have spent a good few decades watching people imitate Sylvester Stallone. You might be able to pull it off yourself. Start with the gravely voice that rumbles and mumbles, make your eyes as heavy-lidded as possible, add a swaggering shoulder roll and then just brood, baby, brood.

Anthony Ippolito has the moves down pat in “I Play Rocky,” Peter Farrelly’s endearing crowd-pleaser, an underdog story about making the underdog movie that went on to win the Oscar for best picture in 1977. The title comes from Stallone’s repeated insistence that he portray the working-class fighter in the film that he wrote for himself. The studio wanted a star — Ryan O’Neal or Burt Reynolds, among others — and offered Stallone $360,000 for the script if he would just walk away. Stallone refused, even though his bank account was down to $106.

“I told my wife that I’d rather bury it in the backyard and let the caterpillars play Rocky,” he said shortly before the movie opened. “I would have hated myself for selling out, the way we hate most people for selling out.”

And that’s why the new film, written by Peter Gamble, has Ippolito say the title so many times that, by the end, you feel like you’ve gone a full 15 rounds with Apollo Creed and been pummeled into submission.

But as you’re watching this breezy movie as it slipstreams its way down memory lane, it starts to feel like Ippolito really is playing Rocky and not Stallone. The difference might be negligible, since “Rocky” was, in many respects, Stallone’s story: a sensitive palooka struggling for the chance to prove himself and earn a measure of self-respect, all the while supported by a woman who believes in his dream.

But the charming, softie Stallone we see in “I Am Rocky” seems like a character from mythology, a Hercules lacking the prickly complexities that Stallone himself detailed in his recent memoir. His tumultuous relationship with his father, Frank (Matt Dillon), is given little attention. Watching this movie, you might be reminded of the quote from “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance”: “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” And while the facts of this oft-told story are, for the most part, accurate, “I Am Rocky” feels too neat, a movie that relies on our love for “Rocky,” the movie and the character.

The film’s first half wastes no time laying the groundwork. It’s 1974 and Stallone is living in squalor in a New York flophouse. When he can’t even afford that, he takes to the streets, sleeping in an alley and adopting a stray bullmastiff that he names Butkus, the same dog that would go on to appear with him in “Rocky.” Desperate for cash, he accepts a part in a softcore porn flick. He eventually takes a job at a movie theater, where he meets Sasha (a lovely AnnaSophia Robb), who, growing weary of his frustrations and their precarious finances, tells him he should write a screenplay with a meaty part for himself.

Stallone soon does just that, cranking out “Rocky” in three and a half days after watching longshot Chuck Wepner (a.k.a. “The Bayonne Bleeder”) go 15 rounds against Muhammad Ali in a heavyweight championship fight. Producers Robert Chartoff (Toby Kebbell) and Irwin Winkler (P.J. Byrne) love the script and take it to brusque studio exec Sandy Maddox (Tracy Letts, gloriously cantankerous playing a composite character), who tells them to give Stallone $50,000 for the screenplay and send this complete unknown on his way. Stallone has a three-word rejoinder.

You don’t need a spoiler alert to know that he indeed does play Rocky, and the second half of the film re-creates the movie’s production, which, because of the shoestring budget, was arduous. The tight schedule forced Stallone to work even when he was sick and hurt. If he didn’t, he feared he’d be fired because the studio still wasn’t thrilled with him playing the lead.

There’s something for everyone in this section. Film nerds will glory in watching Steadicam inventor Garrett Brown (Michael Fuchs) sprinting up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, smoothly following Stallone, creating “Rocky’s” most famous scene with a fluidity that revolutionized moviemaking. Downtrodden directors will appreciate Jay Duplass’ knowing portrayal of John G. Avildsen, charged with making “Rocky” as quickly and frugally as possible. Avildsen brought the movie in on time and went on to win the Oscar for directing.

And longtime fans will appreciate that the film plays all the hits: the bare-knuckle beef pounding, the training sequences, the intimate ice rink scene with Talia Shire (Kiki Seto). Hollywood loves to celebrate its own scrappy mythmaking. (Ippolito’s biggest part prior to this was playing Al Pacino in “The Offer,” a limited series about the making of “The Godfather.”) Sure, it’s sentimental. And maybe you’d be better off just staying home and revisiting “Rocky.” What can I say? I put Bill Conti’s soaring “Gonna Fly Now” on repeat during the drive home. Nostalgia is a powerful drug.