Real Steel

Rating: 4/5

Oh boy, a boxing movie. A boxing movie based around a toy I had as a kid. Why? Why isn't it just a cartoon? I mean, the whole point is to sell toys, so why spend 200 million? Oh, and it's got a little kid main character, great. Jeez, this is Phantom Menace all over again. God, why does Real Steel exist? Based on the above lines, you'd probably guess that I hated this movie. Surprise, I had a great time.

Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) is a drifting schmoozer with a tendency to leap without looking, and used to be a world class heavyweight. Now it's 2020, and 1000 pound robots have replaced people in the ring. After Charlie's ex-wife dies, he's stuck with his young son Max (Dakota Goyo) for the summer. As it turns out, Max is a huge robot boxing fan, and on a rainy night looking for robot parts with Charlie, Max discovers a beat up old training bot named Atom, who has a copycat function. Now our heroes have to find a way to make Atom a real fighter, and how to be father and son.

Real Steel is an example of a really good family film. It has real heart, so we actually care that Atom wins, even though we know he will in the end. I found myself resisting the urge to clap a couple of times in the theater. Real Steel is an almost Spielbergian feel-good movie that I'm surprised wasn't released this summer. And like Warrior, Real Steel is about the relationship between two people, with robots smashing each other to bits as a centerpiece.

Speaking of, the robots look great. Unlike Transformers where the robots are too busy and not immediately distinguishable from one another, Real Steel's robots are simple as well as unique. Honestly, they look more like the Transformers than the Transformers movie. The effects in Real Steel make it easy to tell what's going on and see the detail of the damage that the things do to each other. You feel like you're in the stands.

Real Steel was a pleasant surprise. I thought that I was going to sit through an hour and a half long toy commercial. But I was wrong, because Real Steel is a well made, well written, well acted, well directed movie with some awesome action scenes. This movie is easy to root for, and doesn't try to hide behind pretention or talking down to its audience. Real Steel is just a good old fashioned fun time at the movies. Not Oscar worthy, but worth the ticket price.