Review by rdoronr

The actors portraying both young and current Arnold have some facial similarity to him. Roland Kickinger ("young Arnold") also has the right body for the job, but here the similarities end: Jürgen Prochnow ("old Arnold") is too old for this casting, has no bodily resemblance to a bodybuilder, looks too short and his acting is too gloomy. There are also other things in the movie that have very bad fit with reality. "Old Arnold" is dominated by his wife, lacks all shred of leadership (as opposed to the real charismatic Arnold). "Young Arnold" is a loner, desperately trying to succeed, while the truth was that Arnold enjoyed hilarious success even before he set foot on American soil, and was actually brought over by a strong sponsor (Weider). I wondered whether the director saw "Pumping Iron", because he missed the real atmosphere around young Arnold, as well as some aspects of his personality. Not all is bad, but having followed Arnold since 1970 - I was disappointed. I hope a better re-make will be done some time into the future. Even a mix-up of the original Pumping Iron + actual clips from the real campaign would have made a better result. Not recommended (5/10).