What’s not to get excited about when you hear the phrase “robots boxing?” It sounds like an awesome spectacle of machinery and special effects in an era where Transformers has made us bloodthirsty for robots beating the shit out of each other. Real Steal attempts to make robots fighting less fantastical by putting them in the boxing ring in a near future when humans grow weary of seeing just regular ol’ dudes fighting each other. It’s not so far-fetched really, but after watching robots claw away at each other via the commands of a controller, Real Steel made me long for an old-fashioned boxing flick any day. Especially one without a precocious little kid.

Real Steel opens with a down-on-his-luck Charlie (Hugh Jackman) who’s lost his robot in a fight with a bull at a country fair. When he finds out his ex-girlfriend has died and left him a child he’s never met, he realizes he can basically sell the 11-year old to a rich aunt in exchange for some dollar dollar bills to buy another robot. Only catch is that he has to watch the kid for the summer, so Charlie and his son Max hit the road to fight robots and learn life lessons from each other.

Along the way, Max digs an old sparring bot out of a junkyard and cleans him up. Turns out it mirrors the actions of the person in front of it, so Max does what any kid would do--teaches it how to dance. Oh, and Charlie, a boxer from days gone by, trains it out to be a real boxer instead of a flashy, splashy robot fighter, and the little bot ends up winning some major fights. This journey eventually sets up Charlie and Max to pit their small bot up against the world champion robot in a robot version of David versus Goliath.

And Evangeline Lilly is in there somewhere as the owner of the boxing ring Charlie used to train at and his sub-plot love interest.

Real Steal isn’t BAD. In fact, some critics are really applauding this film. But, for me, it just felt so schmaltzy. Sure, robots fighting is pretty cool, I’ll give you that. But, the human element the film kept trying to cram down my neck was this father-son dynamic of a dad who needs to grow up and a boy who just needs a dad. This may make me sound hardhearted, but it just felt so forced. I didn’t really feel it at all, and I hate any movie that tries to manipulate my feelings so blatantly. Plus, Max was so obnoxious to me that I couldn’t get behind him at all--or his weird robot dancing. Furthermore, the brief romance with Lilly’s character was so tacked on that it just didn’t seem necessary.

This movie made me long for a real boxing flick, with real blood, sweat, and tears, not something that is praised for being “almost human.”

-- Darcie Duttweiler

I’m not typically a huge fan of sports movies. Sure, I can get swept away into the emotion of it all and root for the underdogs. And yeah, I can sit on the edge of my seat in anticipation of the outcome of the big game or fight. Moneyball is a movie for people who don’t like sports movies--and maybe for those that do too. Granted it’s not necessarily your typical rock ‘em, sock ‘em sports movie. But what would you expect from a film that was written by The West Wing creator, Aaron Sorkin?

Moneyball is the story of Oakland A’s general manager and ex-baseball player, Billy Beane (Brad Pitt), who tries to make the A’s a winning team, despite having a third of the budget of basically every other team on the planet. When he encounters an economics Yale graduate, Peter (still fat Jonah Hill), who thinks about baseball in stats and numbers rather than judging the players’ personalities and looks, he snatches him up in hopes of reinventing baseball.

Together, the two set out to put together a team full of misfit toys who are cheap and effective but have been overlooked by the other major teams. Throughout this process, Billy and Peter butt heads with the A’s coach (Phillip Seymour Hoffman), the owners, and basically everyone else in baseball. The film also takes a look back at how Billy went from promising rookie to a scout before settling in as the A’s general manager. Robin Wright is also thrown in to play his wife for a brief snippet. Just FYI.

This may sound kinda boring to those who want a traditional baseball flick. And you do get to see some games, but I was pleasantly surprised at how riveting this movie actually was. It’s slightly long, granted, but Moneyball is so sharply written and well-acted that the film comes together quite cohesively. They even thrown in some clever and funny moments to keep the story chugging forward. Pitt and Hill also have great chemistry, and Pitt has never been better with an incredibly nuanced performance.

Moneyball might not be for the thrill seekers who love a great sports flick, but I don’t want to describe it as a strategies and statistics movie because that sounds boring as shit, and this film is not. It’s subtle yet powerful, quiet yet moving, and offers a great performance by Brad Pitt.

--Darcie Duttweiler

Don't let the Drive trailers fool you. Drive is not some nonstop action thriller in the vein of anything starring Vin Diesel. Instead, Drive is a truly intense, highly-stylized, modern film noir. It is as violent as it is beautiful, as quiet as it is hip, and well-acted as it is gorgeously shot on the streets of L.A. Drive might not the action movie for people who love Transformers. It doesn't come at you guns a'blazing—rather, it moves methodically and swiftly, moving steadily to a bloody denouement with a quiet force that will transfix you.

Read more after the jump!