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
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
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