Over The Top
Over the top!
So I’m going to share my thoughts on Over the Top. This is a movie about Sylvester Stallone being the greatest arm wrestler/father on the planet. Are you grinning in anticipation yet? No. Well let me mention that this was after Rocky IV, so Stallone is almost out of boxing flicks. So what sport should he take on next? Well, arm wrestling of course. Who does he arm wrestle? The biggest arms found in Hollywood. Stallone goes beats multiple actual arm wrestlers (I didn’t actually think this was a think until I looked it up), then he goes through wrestlers, and even multi-time world arm wrestling champion and professional wrestler Scott Norton. (Not a clue who that is). Anyway, this article/random series of thoughts will be unedited, so please excuse any grammar mistakes I make. (Such as the fact that I used arm wrestle in basically every sentence.
Let’s begin. I think I’ll do some questions followed by some answers. Here we go:
[Warning: There might be a couple of spoilers]
What did you think of the movie overall?
I thought that this movie imbued basically everything I love about Sylvester Stallone in one and a half hours. He tries to become a better father to his son who’s mom dies mid-way through the film, and only other relative is a grandfather (Robert Loggia). The bad guy of this film is the grandfather, because he’s trying to keep the Stallone’s kid away from him. Stallone, (called Lincoln Hawk, the ultimate combination of a pretty bland first name, at least for a Stallone character, with a super awesome name that also is an animal!), says no, that’s not happening. Hawk basically steals the kid and they drive their way (did I mention Hawk is also a truck driver because you have to make Stallone’s occupation as manly as possible), to the World Armwrestling Championship in Las Vegas.
What was your favorite sequence?
Probably the five minute arm-wrestle between Hawk and the other multiple time winner of the World Armwrestling Championship. There were multiple shots of Stallone’s sweating face, and then multiple shots of the two arms grasping and trying to “get over the top”. I’m also 99% sure that this is the only movie ever made about arm-wrestling, and will be until Stallone decided to make another one.
Do you know what the tagline for this movie is?
No, what?
Some Fight for money… some fight for glory… he’s fighting for his son’s love.
Wow. That is the perfect tag for this movie. What’s weird is he’s also fighting for money. Because he sold his truck to get into this contest. But who cares, the tagline is 100% right. He is fighting for his son’s love.
Another tagline is: Rocky, Rambo, Cobra and now Hawk, in the biggest fight of his life.
I don’t have a clue who Cobra is, but I love it because almost every single one of those roles is basically the same. Or at least, Rocky and Hawk are, and Cobra and Rambo are. Stallone likes to play underdogs doesn’t he? Also Stallone apparently made $12 million staring in this movie.
That’s a lot of money. Do you have anything else you want to mention?
Yeah. I read a review of this movie and the reviewer thought that it was made whenever Arnold Schwarzenegger challenged Sylvester Stallone to an arm wrestle, and Sylvester Stallone made this movie to prove he was better. Well I think that in 1987, Schwarzenegger and Stallone challenged each other to put arm wrestling in their next movies. Schwarzenegger took the easier route and made Predator, which has a scene were he arm wrestle/grapples Carl Weathers. But Stallone was like: “Oh I can top that, and made Over the Top, where he literally wins the entire World Championship of arm wrestling!” This is just a theory.
Is that it?
Pretty much.This movie basically is the 80s for me. Well this, Footloose, Back to the Future, and Buckaroo Banzai (which is the wierdest/best/coolest movie ever.)
Good for you.
Yep. So go watch Over the Top, and if you can’t, listen to “Meet Me Half Way” by Kenny Loggins, who sang Footloose. Now here are some parting words of wisdom from Lincoln Hawk:
“The world meets nobody halfway. When you want something, you gotta take it.” So go take it!