Real Steel (C+ or 2.5/4 stars)
'Real Steel' (directed by Shawn Levy, A Night at the Museum) offers a rollicking good time at the theaters ... for kids. Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman), once a promising boxer, is washed-up, & has been out of a job ever since prize fighting btwn. humans was outlawed. Now, only 2,000 lb., 9-ft. tall robots ("bots") are fighting. Charlie is a small-time promoter who owns/controls a rusty, broke-down robot that can win against 2nd-tier opponents. When Charlie - who's in debt to no less than 3 people - pushes his robot to the limit in underground boxing tournaments, he ends up with little more than scrap metal. To get another bot, he needs $$. This is when his estranged 11 yr. old son, Max (stellar newcomer Dakota Goyo) enters the story ...
See, Charlie abandoned Max as a baby, but Max's mom has died, & that makes Charlie his legal guardian. The last thing Charlie wants is to be saddled with a son, & Max's aunt (Hope Davis) wants to raise him. So Charlie makes her husband a proposition: for $100,000, he'll sell his legal guardianship rights to them. The husband agrees, but only under the condition that Charlie babysits Max while he & his wife vacation for the summer. The deal goes through. Charlie gets $$. And he also gets a sidekick in Max. The story really kicks into gear once Max find his own bot, Atom - buried in a junkyard. After some tinkering by Charlie's too-good-to-be-true love interest, Bailey (Evangeline Lily, of 'Lost'), Atom comes to life (like Frankenstein, so to speak).
BUT, Atom is smaller, older, & weaker than other fighter bots. Atom becomes Max's best pal. Max badgers Charlie into training Atom into a championship contender. And Charlie gets Atom some fights. Much to Charlie's surprise, Atom wins his 1st one, & drama unspools as Atom continues to win; subsequently getting an against all odds David vs. Goliath chance to fight against the best bot in the world, Zeus.
'Real Steel' fuses 4 film genres into one movie: father/son flick, boy-and-his-pet flick, Transformers-like flick, & sports flick (a la Rocky). That's fine. The film works hard to win over all audiences (though I maintain that kids in the 10-12 yr. old range will probably enjoy it the most). All that said, this is one of the most unoriginal movies to come out all year. Every aspect of this movie is familiar & borrowed from other movies. And it's a testament to the winning performances & the wonderful robot bouts that this film is as successful (C+ rating for me) as it is.
Let's talk positives (of the film). Director Shawn Levy makes great use of blending live-action people with animatronic & CGI special effect work (the robots). The robot-design is cool (and more easily decipherable than the Transformer bots). 'Atom', the underdog bot, looks old, clunky, & sweet. We automatically root for him. Zeus is huge, sleek, shiny, imposing. We want to root against him. They look effortless onscreen. And the effects go a long way in making this film as satisfying as it is in the end. We believe in what we're seeing (real or fake), so we easily take-in the emotional spots. Furthermore, the editing of the fight sequences is fantastic. Gripping stuff; and Sugar Ray Leonard even helped with the choreography of the fights.
But it's not all so rosy. There are cliches around every corner (to a big detriment). And though the film goes through all the motions of being a successful experience, I felt too emotionally manipulated to jump for joy. Did I root for our trio of protagonists? Yes. Did I cry in the end? Well, yes I did {haha}. But I know genuine tears. And I know manipulated tears. That was some major manipulation right there. In the end, 'Real Steel' is neither as bad nor as great as it could be. It is ... good enough. That was my feeling walking away (and now as I type). Hugh Jackman brings flawed humanity to his role & works hard to make up for the film's weaknesses. It is, at most, a well-crafted family film. And the rousing climax (last 15 min. or so) saved it for me.
See, Charlie abandoned Max as a baby, but Max's mom has died, & that makes Charlie his legal guardian. The last thing Charlie wants is to be saddled with a son, & Max's aunt (Hope Davis) wants to raise him. So Charlie makes her husband a proposition: for $100,000, he'll sell his legal guardianship rights to them. The husband agrees, but only under the condition that Charlie babysits Max while he & his wife vacation for the summer. The deal goes through. Charlie gets $$. And he also gets a sidekick in Max. The story really kicks into gear once Max find his own bot, Atom - buried in a junkyard. After some tinkering by Charlie's too-good-to-be-true love interest, Bailey (Evangeline Lily, of 'Lost'), Atom comes to life (like Frankenstein, so to speak).
BUT, Atom is smaller, older, & weaker than other fighter bots. Atom becomes Max's best pal. Max badgers Charlie into training Atom into a championship contender. And Charlie gets Atom some fights. Much to Charlie's surprise, Atom wins his 1st one, & drama unspools as Atom continues to win; subsequently getting an against all odds David vs. Goliath chance to fight against the best bot in the world, Zeus.
'Real Steel' fuses 4 film genres into one movie: father/son flick, boy-and-his-pet flick, Transformers-like flick, & sports flick (a la Rocky). That's fine. The film works hard to win over all audiences (though I maintain that kids in the 10-12 yr. old range will probably enjoy it the most). All that said, this is one of the most unoriginal movies to come out all year. Every aspect of this movie is familiar & borrowed from other movies. And it's a testament to the winning performances & the wonderful robot bouts that this film is as successful (C+ rating for me) as it is.
Let's talk positives (of the film). Director Shawn Levy makes great use of blending live-action people with animatronic & CGI special effect work (the robots). The robot-design is cool (and more easily decipherable than the Transformer bots). 'Atom', the underdog bot, looks old, clunky, & sweet. We automatically root for him. Zeus is huge, sleek, shiny, imposing. We want to root against him. They look effortless onscreen. And the effects go a long way in making this film as satisfying as it is in the end. We believe in what we're seeing (real or fake), so we easily take-in the emotional spots. Furthermore, the editing of the fight sequences is fantastic. Gripping stuff; and Sugar Ray Leonard even helped with the choreography of the fights.
But it's not all so rosy. There are cliches around every corner (to a big detriment). And though the film goes through all the motions of being a successful experience, I felt too emotionally manipulated to jump for joy. Did I root for our trio of protagonists? Yes. Did I cry in the end? Well, yes I did {haha}. But I know genuine tears. And I know manipulated tears. That was some major manipulation right there. In the end, 'Real Steel' is neither as bad nor as great as it could be. It is ... good enough. That was my feeling walking away (and now as I type). Hugh Jackman brings flawed humanity to his role & works hard to make up for the film's weaknesses. It is, at most, a well-crafted family film. And the rousing climax (last 15 min. or so) saved it for me.