Real Steel (2011)
Certified: PG
Duration: 127 minutes
Directed by: Shawn Levy
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Dakota Guyo, Evangeline Lilly, Hope Davis, Kevin Durand, Anthony Mackie, Olga Fonda, James Rebhorn, Karl Yune
KRS release
Real Steel is nice popcorn entertainment flick, as it mixes I Robot with Rocky, dollops of The Champ and swipes from A.I.: Artificial Intelligence. It combines sympathetic performances with top notch effects and a crowd-pleasing story.
In fact, Real Steel turned out to be a better film than I had expected, because I was not sure about the subject matter – robot boxing. This sci-fi picture was made to be enjoyed by a wide audience even though I’m sure many sci-fi fans will probably snub the film as just an oversimplified Hollywood take on robotics.
Real Steel skips over several issues such as whether in 2020 there are already fourth generation robots getting into boxing rings. And how come they are used only for boxing? Aren’t here any war robots? It’s impossible that such a leap in robotics could have only affected the world of boxing. Having said this, I enjoyed the film, rooted for its protagonists, enjoyed the metal-on-metal scrapes as well as lapped up the Rocky-style tear-jerking ending.
Real Steel is set in 2020. Hugh Jackman plays Charlie Kenton, a former boxer who started coaching robots when the sport was taken taken over by the steel creatures. He is down on his luck and is reduced to running third string old robots in fights against bulls in rodeos and such.
The gym in which he formerly trained, which is owned by his girlfriend, Bailey Tallet (Evangeline Lilly), is not doing well, and Charlie is bankrupt.
In the first part of the film Charlie discovers that his 11-year-old son Max (Dakota Goya) is about to make an unwelcome return in his life. The boy’s mother has just passed away and Charlie has Max’s custody rights, even though more than 10 years have elapsed since he last seen the child. The child’s Aunt Debra (Hope Davis) wants custody and when bribed by her rich husband, Charlie signs off the kid. He just has to spend a summer with Max first.
For Max this will be the chance to see his father cope with trouble, with bad debts, fights and one bad decision after another. Max is, however, very adept with electronics and videogames and takes to robot boxing as if it were his second nature. He soon fixes his own robot called Atom which he salvages from a scrapyard. This leads them to the world of underground boxing and a confrontation with Zeus, the ultimate robot boxer who is also the reigning champ of the robot boxing leagues.
An unabashed tear-jerker in particular moments, Real Steel has some wonderful and well-executed robot vs robot fights. Each adversary is given a signature characteristic to distinguish him from other robots: two heads, a Mohawk, black colour, etc. Action figure merchandising is a clear objective here.
Apart from this, the special effects – in the Transformers mode – do not leave the audience feeling assaulted. This is due to the robots not moving at such a high speed to become a mere blur of whirling metal. The robots and their actions are well defined and this makes the robot scenes a pleasure to watch. The editing is sharp and makes the effects alone worth the price of the cinema ticket.
Mr Jackman seems to be having fun while Dakota Guyo is a typical Hollywood moppet – all smiles, snappy one-liners and cute face.
The film is an adaptation of the 1956 short story called Steel by Richard Matheson. By the end of the film I realised that director Shawn Levy’s adaptation is simply itching for a sequel. And despite myself, I gave in to the veteran film-maker in wishing for one too.