To be totally fair here at the start, we get it. If you haven’t sat down and watched Over the Top, ideally with friends and lots of beer and pizza, then you’re missing out because the 1987 action-sports vehicle starring Sylvester Stallone at the height of his powers isn’t a perfect movie—but it’s a damn near perfect watching experience.

There’s admittedly a ton of odd and awkward moments and scenes, perplexing acting decisions, poorly conceived directing choices, and overall a simplicity to the story that leaves quite a bit to be desired. Yet, for all its flaws, it’s just an absolutely fun movie to watch start to finish.

Also, it stars Sylvester Stallone at the very height of his acting and action-performance powers, and the film’s best parts by far are its fun, “over-the-top” stunts and high-stakes arm-wrestling sequences. All great stuff, all very rewatchable today, yet forever questionable as to why the film didn’t land as a bigger hit.

Looking Back at 'Over the Top'

As mentioned above, we’re not here to be obtuse. We know Over the Top was a box-office bomb, and we’re quite certain we understand the main reasons why. Some of the best reasons for the film’s poor box office results are readily on display in the documentary Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films, which is a fascinating look into the wild highs and lows of The Cannon Group, aka Cannon Films.

And to fully understand the flaws of Over the Top, you kind of have to understand the flaws of Cannon Films and its two key players, Yoram Globus and Menahem Golan, the latter of whom serves as the director helming Over the Top and enabling both its greatest highs and lowest lows.

Still, for all its goofiest moments, it can’t be understated just how clearly Golan and the Cannon Films crew truly understand what makes ultimate action cinema so damn enjoyable. Over the Top is a movie that knows what it is, and in a brisk 90 minutes hits all of its marks right on cue.

But Why Wasn’t it a Hit?

To call out Over the Top for being silly or low-brow is kind of a cop out too, as many films of the same era were making similar lowest-common-denominator decisions and appealing to the simplest of premises and concept designs.

Just a decade earlier, Clint Eastwood starred in a similarly poorly reviewed action comedy alongside an orangutan named Clyde in Every Which Way but Loose that went on to gross over ten times its budget and get a sequel.

For the life of me, I can’t seem to understand why Over the Top, which had arguably a bigger star than Eastwood at his high powers, and a less hacky concept, didn’t find success with the masses, even if the critics rightfully sniffed it out.

The Legacy of 'Over the Top'

On top of it all, Over the Top had a huge marketing budget with some wild PR stunts, which are fun to look back at now.

Yet, despite all the over-the-top efforts, the film didn’t take off in its original run. It, of course, became a cult classic as most movies of its type do, but its box office bomb status was one of the first major stones in the demise of Cannon Films and an era of ultimate action that is sad, if not understandable.

Still, for film fans, historians, and lovers of genre action flicks of the era, the film is what it is, and we’re glad to have it on VHS or whatever to view with friends and family for a good time. Which, if you think about it, is the true goal of a project and something a box office number can never truly represent.

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