Director Shawn Levy (Date Night, Night at the Museum) has created a fun kid’s movie that will likely also be enjoyed by parents. Based on the 1965 short story by acclaimed author Richard Matheson (think most of the Twilight Zone series and I Am Legend), Levy is able to take the story and make it interesting, despite a few clichés and “I’ve seen this before”s.
Premise: An estranged boy and father overcome their distance while training a robot to win in a world where robots have replaced boxers. Result: A fun film that may tweak out a few tears now and again but ultimately an innocuous story meant for a good smile, if not much more.
The premise of Real Steel is relatively a pros pos considering our current culture’s obsession with violence in sports. In this future world, set sometime in the distant but not too distant future, boxing with humans has been replaced by boxing with giant robots. In this case, the story focuses on down-on-his-luck former boxer Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) who now poorly manages robot boxers. He is a train wreck we have seen before: the type of guy who bets on all the wrong horses and just can’t seem to find luck at the end of a rainbow, under a leprechaun, suiting on a pot of gold.
Of course, after all sorts of pathetic decision making, his ex-girlfriend dies suddenly (we get no back story on this) and he now has to give legal custody to her sister, who, of course, hates him because he’s a low-life. He then brokers a deal to basically sell his son to the aunt’s husband just to beat us over the head with his unlikeability. His son Max (Dakota Goyo) aka Captain Adorable, aka Justin Beiber Jr. is a smart-mouthed, precocious munchkin capable of turning on the charm on a dime. He easily stands up to his father (by this point in the film aka Prince of Darkness) and seems to know everything about robots and robot boxing and unlike his Father, appears to have been born with a brain.
The film really gets moving after the two discover an abandoned Sparring-bot named Atom who has been forgotten long ago. Max uses his persistence and Charlie’s incompetence at robot management to rebuild him and weasel his way into a fight at an arena that is straight out of Mad Max with none of the charm. But, against all odds, the feisty little bot is able to take down the trash heap of an opponent and prove that he has the ability to take heavy hits. And so begins the rise of Atom amidst the frailty that is the Kenton relationship.
The rest of the film manages to follow a completely predictable David vs. Goliath that is foreshadowed almost instantly. The rise of Atom as a tough robot able to overcome all adversity becomes the theme of this film as it mirrors the rebuilding of the Father-Son relationship that for a decade had been in complete disrepair. Levy manages to infuse some drama and excitement in the film by making Atom mysterious. With a shadow function, Atom is instantly set up as unique, a rare find. This, plus Charlie’s gritty boxing training, helps to position this sparring bot as having the unique skills to actually pull off the impossible.
The robot fight scenes are fairly entertaining and Levy manages to keep the suspense building along the way with each fight taking on a different, nuanced complexion, rather than just re-hashed metal vs. metal. Over time there is a sense that this robot may in fact be special, alive in some way, even though this is only eluded to through subtle gestures in direction and not overtly, a tactic that surely would have ruined the film.
The relationship between the boy and his father eventually becomes somewhat endearing, evolving from distant, cold strangers to loved ones. It is a slow and believable development, ripe with fits and starts and countless arguments that make their eventual affection for one another more real, more intricate.
There is also a secondary plot line based on undying love between Charlie and Baily (Evangeline Lilly), the sexy owner of a boxing studio (or something, it’s never really clear) that Charlie rents. Here, we have the “I love you but I just can’t do it anymore” plotline playing out, unraveling itself as each scene goes on to little fanfare. Levy tries to make this relationship seem fresh by adding in Baily’s father having been Charlie’s mentor and thus supplying additional oxygen to the room. But instead, we have a time suck on screen, forcing audiences to stare blankly, waiting for the robots to come back.
The acting is more than passable: Jackman is interesting and sufficiently nuanced and Lilly is as good as is expected, even if her plotline is boring. Goyo, is actually quite remarkable as the adorable pipsqueak that makes us keep on hoping. We care mainly because he cares so damn much. The rest of the cast is fairly boiler plate for a film like this, although Kevin Durand as the villainous Ricky manages to take a caricatured, nonsensical Texan and making him interesting and detestable in all the right ways.
Overall, Real Steel is a fun film for a rainy afternoon when all interest in new and surprising stories have been left at the door. Levy and his cast do a good job of lifting this film out of the dregs where it was doomed to languish through good acting and a couple of genuine thrills. Maybe next time, we’ll get that plus something we haven’t seen before…now wouldn’t that be something!
Rating: 7- A refreshing Champagne that a cute bartender comp’d you!
Director Shawn Levy (The Internship, Night at the Museum), working with writer Jonathan Tropper, on whose novel the film is based, delivers a good time with This Is Where I Leave You. Unfortunately, all the fun, of which there is definitely some, is tempered by an overwhelming need o cover every possible “family problem” known to man, and then some.
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