The movie Sylvester Stallone immediately regretted making: “It caught me at a weak moment”
Hollywood has never seen a figure emerge quite like Sylvester Stallone, and there has not been anyone remotely similar who has come out in the years since he entered the industry.
Despite having a breakout early on in his career with Rocky, which many saw as the dubbing of a new movie star, Stallone proceeded to write, direct, and star in many hit films that were beloved by audiences but absolutely savaged by critics; however, he’s had surprisingly little remorse for the roles he’s taken on.
Rocky and First Blood, the two franchises Stallone helped turn into American icons, quickly lost their artistic appeal once he began taking a more primary role as a writer and director; Rocky turned from the ultimate underdog to a larger-than-life sports champion, and John Rambo transformed from a deeply unsettled veteran to a remorseless soldier fighting on behalf of American values.
Regardless, some of Stallone’s films have been reclaimed as cult classics, but many have simply been lost to history, and while often receiving blowback for “playing the same character” in every film that he appeared in, his reasons for doing so became apparent anytime that he stepped outside of his comfort zone.
He was often locked in competition with the other two major action stars of the 1980s and ‘90s, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis, the difference between them being that the other two could do comedy, while Rambo didn’t have a funny bone in his body. Stallone’s attempt at making a heartwarming family comedy was Over the Top, a film where he plays a trucker who attempts to bond with his estranged prepubescent son by entering into an arm wrestling competition. Despite his general disregard for critics, he admitted that he had been strong-armed into starring in the film, which he ultimately did for its financial benefits.
”It was not a very good experience,” Stallone said, “It was something I shouldn’t have done. It caught me at a weak moment. There was a lot of money involved, and at the time, I thought I could make anything work. It was just foolish.”
This was the rare Stallone film to actually underperform financially, suggesting that his reign as an unstoppable champion of ‘80s cinema may be coming to an end. To make matters worse, his rivals proved that they actually were capable of doing more family-friendly material, where Willis turned the Look Who’s Talking franchise into a phenomenon, and Schwarzenegger successfully worked with child actors on Kindergarten Cop and Jingle All the Way.
Over the Top may have been doomed from the start, but the actor also may have, ironically enough, been the best part about the film. It’s easy to forget that Stallone can be a truly committed performer when given the right role, as he later would be in Creed, and while the former is a pretty cheesy depiction of a strained father-son dynamic, Stallone didn’t look down at the material, and certainly did his best to elevate what he was given.
Over the Top is certainly considered to be a curiosity in his career, but not necessarily the nadir; when compared to Rhinestone, Get Carter, Judge Dredd, and the last two films in The Expendable series, it could almost be called underrated.
