Real Steel Review
By Karen Dahlstrom
Bread and Circuits
In the not-too-distant future of "Real Steel", fight fans' lust for total annihilation has made it necessary to put robots in the ring, leaving human boxers obsolete. One such ex-boxer, Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman), now makes his living as an itinerant robot boxing trainer and promoter. A little down on his luck, he works the carnival circuit, pitting his bot against the local talent -- be it machine or two-ton bull. It's a living, but not much more. Charlie's in debt up to his eyeballs with some pretty unsavory types, and it's getting harder to get by with just a wink and a smile.
"Real Steel" gets off to a promising start, as the futuristic world of fighting robots is set against the quaint Americana of county fairs and old boxing gyms. Charlie's "home base," if he has one, is the Texas fight gym where he was trained. The gym is owned by Bailey (Evangeline Lilly), the daughter of his deceased trainer and Charlie's bot mechanic. They have a playful, if strained, relationship. She's heard his big talk and empty promises for years, but she also fondly remembers when he was a "beautiful" fighter. A jacked-up Jackman obligingly removes his shirt and shows off his Sugar Ray Leonard-trained form often enough for us to believe it.
If by this time you didn't know you were being set up for a classic redemption story, it'll soon hit you on the head. The blunt instrument in question appears in the form of Charlie's long-lost son, Max (Dakota Goyo). It seems that Charlie's former girlfriend has died, leaving him custody (by Texas law) of the son he's never met. Charlie, ever the prince, agrees to grant custody to Max's aunt (Hope Davis) in exchange for a hefty fee from her rich husband. But first, the kid has to spend the summer with Charlie, because Uncle Moneybags (seriously, the guy is wearing an ascot) doesn't want little Max spoiling their vacation in Tuscany. Nice, huh?
Blond, blue-eyed and belligerent, Max is none too pleased that his so-called dad would basically sell him to the highest bidder (this is a kids' movie?), nor does he fancy being left with Bailey all summer. (Obviously, hormones haven't set in yet.) Instead, he demands to be taken along with Charlie on the boxing circuit. His annoyingly precocious knowledge of robot boxing, video game skills and a way with an arc welder (um, kids?) makes him a grudging asset on the road, until his cocky attitude gets their bot totaled in their first fight.
In a robot junkyard looking for parts, Max finds an old sparring robot from back in the day, rusting in the mud. Looking more like the Iron Giant than a Transformer, "Atom" (as it says on its chest) seems almost human. Max decides to keep him, like some kind of lost puppy. Charlie agrees to let him put him in the ring, as long as Max acts as Atom's promoter, trainer and mechanic by himself. Taking the challenge to heart, Max uses Atom's "shadow function" to teach it how to dance as well as fight, proving himself to be quite the chip off the showman's block.
Atom's success in the ring (primarily its ability to take a punch) and Max's gimmickry makes them underdog stars on the circuit, garnering the notice of the Worldwide Robot Boxing organization and the curiosity of the other bot owners and trainers. Meanwhile, the relationship between Charlie and Max grows closer. An unlikely shot at the title fight with the champ, Zeus, will set up the Rocky-type redemption that the audience is set up to slaver for.
Just as Max manipulates Atom, director Shawn Levy ("Night at the Museum") takes great pains to squeeze every Pavlovian "awww…", "oh no!" and "get him!" moment out of John Gatins' clichéd, formulaic script. "Real Steel" is decent entertainment, like a monster truck rally is decent entertainment, but it had the potential to be better than it is. Sure, it's loud and CGI robots go crunch in grand style, but the human story that drives it is overly sentimental and hackneyed. If only Levy hadn't insisted on covering every sweet moment with sap or going for the "easy" gags. At the point where Max actually teaches the robot to "do" the robot, it's painfully clear that "Real Steel" is covered in a molten layer of cheese. Let's hope that in the sequel (already in production), audiences will get a bit more iron than Velveeta in their movie diet.
