Real Steel Review

A film about robots fighting each other that’s both vaguely tolerable and not in 3D? Not on your nelly! At least that’s what I would have said, posed with that question prior to seeingReal Steel. I am pleased to report that director Shawn Levy’s latest effort is a surprisingly decent little film that may well go some way in setting right the bad name CGI-robot-battle-fests have been given recently.

Set in a near future world where regular puny human boxing has been superseded by exciting, no-holds-barred robot rumbles, former pugilist Hugh Jackman tests his mettle – or ‘metal’, if you will – fighting (via remote control) in the non-league robot boxing circuit. After a few mishaps, a lot of lost cash and whole pile of broken robot parts, Jackman is reunited with his estranged son Max and together they battle a rusty old training bot, Atom, on the circuit. Will the no-hope underdog stand a chance in the fierce world of robot-boxing? What do you think?

It may sound a bit daft and the underdog sports movie is hardly the genre in which you might expect to find startling originality, but Real Steel is definitely one of the more enjoyable family-friendly films of this year. Jackman is outstanding and – despite his reputation as one of the most likable men in Hollywood – plays something of total git in this film (he quite literally plans to sell his own son), which is very amusing and enjoyable. Dakota Goyo, the kid, is far less annoying than you’d have any reason to anticipate. Evangeline Lilly plays the token love interest and even if she veers wildly from being quite good to quite bad in the acting stakes, she’s always rather charming. Her fellow Lost alumni (and Jackman’s former X-Person colleague) Kevin Durand plays a rival to Jackman and is terrific, doing that superficially-pleasant-but-oh-my-goodness-he’s-a-total-psycho thing he does so very well. Unfortunately, he doesn’t get nearly enough screen time; there really should be a campaign to get Durand into more films, because he’s clearly brilliant.

Also exciting were the robot designs which throw up some genuinely interesting-to-look-at machines, rather than blurry masses of cogs, guns and windscreens, like some other big-screen bots I could mention. There’s a minor plot-point in which we’re perhaps led to believe that there’s more to Atom than being simply a machine, but this is left thankfully ambiguous – we get no more than a brief, silent scene in which the robot looks at his own reflection and into his baleful blue LED eyes, which is a really effective and well-executed collaboration between design and direction. Also pleasing was the fact that in many scenes, animatronic robots are clearly used – no matter how good CGI gets, it’s always better when you know there’s something really there in the scene (which, incidentally, is one of the many reasons old Star Wars is better than new Star Wars).

Yes, the film maybe somewhat clichéd, hackneyed and overlong. Yes, there’s a hell of a lot of product placement (though the Xbox 720 advert was a nice touch). Yes, the final battle is staggeringly shameless in its manipulation of your emotions, but if you fail to be uplifted by it, there’s probably something deeply wrong with you that you should talk to your close friends and family about. But in spite of all that, Real Steel boasts heart, charm and characters you give a rat’s ass about, something sorely missing in many blockbusters. It may not be the most well-oiled machine you’ll ever see, but it is certainly punching above its weight.