Real Steel0

You have to admit that the first time you saw the trailer for Real Steel you said “whaa?” It definitely seemed like an odd movie to actually get made. An underdog boxing movie is nothing new but an underdog boxing movie with robots staring Wolverine, the kid who played young Thor and Kate from Lost, that’s a little odd.

Real Steel is Hugh Jackman’s first major role since Australia (2008) and it is more of a kid’s movie than anything. But it’s a kid’s movie that isn’t afraid to show a more grown up world for kids and I don’t mean because there are a bunch of expensive robots learning to box, but more that there are real life problems that kids must deal with. Namely crappy parents and dodgy people. It reminds me of a lot of films from the late 80‘s and early 90‘s that as a kid I could watch and understand while still feeling like it’s more of an adult film, movies like Fight of the Navigator or The Karate Kid. While there are lots of robots punching the crap out of each other, the story is really about the relationship between Charlie (Jackman) and his son Max. It is a good old tale of the neglectful father (who is a real prick) and how he finally bonds with his son over a common interest, in this case rock ‘em sock ‘em robots.

Now if that sounds cliché to you then you would be one hundred percent right. This movie has more stupid movie clichés in it than a whole season on community. So many cheese lines of dialogue and over used looks. There are whole section of Rocky that are just place right in the middle of this film it’s almost comical. There are just a few examples of just how cliché Real Steel gets :

• You have the charming yet tough bad father who is a washed up former boxer,  down on his luck
• The over confident, sassy kid, with the heart of gold, who can’t find his place in the world.
• The responsible yet cold foster parents who want what is best for the child but don’t understand him at all.
• The soulless villains who while ruling at the top, they don’t understand the spirit of the sport. They are evil because only they care about making money.
• Finally you have the beat up old robot from the scrap yard, who no one thinks can go anywhere, fighting his way to the top. Oh and he may or may not be alive.

Apart from the pretty awesome looking robot fights everything in this movie has been done before. The whole thing comes to a climax with the biggest cliché ending you’ll ever see and while I won’t ruin it for you, if you’ve ever seen a sports movie before, you know how it ends. After all that – would you believe, it’s actually pretty good? Like I said there is nothing original and everything predictable but it still manages to tug at those heart strings and let you have fun along the way. It is pretty much the Sylvester Stallone movie Over the Top (if you’ve seen it I’m impressed) but instead of arm wrestling it’s robot boxing. It comes across as very genuine and seeing how much effort and joy Jackman puts into it you can’t hate this film.

The kid does a great job too (who didn’t annoy me at all) and Evangeline Lilly is adorable (as always) as the love interest. Oh and did I mention that this film has robots punching the crap out of each other. The movie has to get ten points just for that. Plus unlike other fighting robot movies, you can actually coherently see what is going on. Pretty cool. So I’d say give it a look especially if you’ve got kids because if I saw this when I was ten I would think it was the best thing ever. See you next week.