Before I even saw this movie, I read an article where someone had gotten to talk to some doctors about what would actually happen if two guys this old (Stallone is 67 and De Niro is 70) actually went back into the ring to fight each other. Essentially, their bones are brittle and their joints can't handle the stress. They would be severely injured within the first five minutes or so, and at least one of them would probably die.
The movie is set in Pittsburgh, and the two men involved were both heavyweight champions who had only one loss on their record - the other guy. Against each other, they were 1 and 1 when Sly decided to retire, and Bobby has been aching for a rematch for the intervening 30 years. The anniversary of the last fight is upon them, so the old tapes come out and interest in a potential rematch is generated.
Kevin Hart plays the boxing promoter who is the son of the guy who promoted the two 30 years earlier and made off with most of their money. He squandered the money, and left his son with a smeared reputation and none of the cash he so desperately wants. So, he does his darnedest to try to get these two to extend their brand to whatever may pay him a finder's fee.
When they show old pictures, they grab De Niro's from Raging Bull and Sly's (hard to guess) from Rocky. The video, however, is short lived on the screen, and that is certainly a good thing. It's CG, and they must have spent all their money on the star power, because they didn't have enough left over to pay for decent CG. They really did look like someone just slapped their faces on an XboX boxing video game.
It's fairly laughable that anyone would think that De Niro could stand toe-to-toe with Sly in a boxing ring. Yes, De Niro is in good shape for this movie, and they hamper Sly a little bit, but Stallone looks to have actively lost muscle mass just to try to make this look even. It wasn't enough.
Kim Bassinger shows up as the shared love interest, and she... stinks up the screen pretty bad. That woman couldn't act when she was young, and she can't act now. However, Alan Arkin plays Stallone's good friend, and that guy always brings a good performance.
Story was comedic, but this was a comedy, so it's okay
Dialog was decent
Acting was generally good
Action was not great
It was too long. It was 113 minutes long, and it should have been more like 80
2.75/5