Winner of several imaginary literary and filmmaking awards.Real Steel is the cinematic equivalent of a hyper, panting, slobbery dog. It practically mauls the audience in an unabashed plea for undying love. In a souped-up, mad-cap, over-emoted epic kind of way, the film unsteadily teeters on the brink of unmitigated disaster for over two hours of metal-clanging robo-fighting and teary-eyed human melodrama. And yet at times it is so hard to deny this unfortunate little battle brawler of a movie. On the surface, it's a Michael Bay-wannabe. But whereas a genuine Michael Bay film would jam its blunt-force testosterone into our consciousness without much care for audience reaction, Real Steel is just a pathetic, uncoordinated mutt on the inside. I tried my best to show it some sympathy even as it just bounded across the screen like a lumbering robot.
Apparently based on a futuristic short story called "Steel," Real Steel is certainly not a visionary preponderance on the future. Save a few window-dressing details, the film doesn't feel "futuristic" at all, though it certainly doesn't take place in the present. It more exists in that timeless movie-movie world where every hour is Magic Hour and every life decision is accompanied by its own soundtrack of unmistakable emotional cues. The only primary element that sets our future sensors on alert is the presence of giant robots -- though these bots aren't entirely sentient like the more "evolved" machines of the Transformers movies. That would require that they hail from another planet; in Real Steel the robots are earthbound and human-controlled -- built, detailed, and pimped-out to engage in a form of main-event prize fighting. Think Robo-MMA.
Hugh Jackman headlines the film as Charlie, a flameout former boxing contender who now skates by as a low-rent huckster, entering his rusty bot in sideshow bouts and getting into hot water by making under-the-table bets with evil underground promoters. On the heels of his most recent disaster, Charlie returns home to discover his ex-girlfriend has died, leaving behind the child (Dakota Goyo) our hero fathered 10 years prior. Charlie doesn't have any desire to pursue a relationship with the kid, but he cuts a lucrative deal with the rich step-uncle (James Rebhorn, not allowed to be as smarmy as he could be, which is disappointing) to spend the summer with the boy before handing him over to his smothering aunt (Hope Davis...what's she doing here?).
Predictably, an insipid father-son story transpires for the duration of the movie, as the kid turns out to be a gamer-slash-techie who is driven to take a low-tech "sparring bot" he finds buried in a treacherous landfill and turn it into a champion fighter. Jackman gets to alternate between being charmingly skeptical and charmingly gruff while slowly being won over by his son and -- whaddya know -- discovering he wants to be a father after all. You might also guess that, through the underdog robot, our hero is able to exorcise the demons of his own professional past and attain success as a fighter once again -- at the expense of evil Asian robot megalomaniacs, no less.
Shawn Levy directed Real Steel, and for better or worse, the guy apparently knows how to mount crowd-pleasing spectacles that attract a large audience (he is coming off two Night at the Museum films). If the audience reaction at the promo screening is any indication, this one will have families rolling in the aisles with uproarious revival-tent cheers -- no wonder a sequel has already been green-lit. To a degree, that makes sense; this film respresents a small step toward more ambitious visual filmmaking for Levy, and working from a screenplay by John Gatins, some of the material works on the basis of pure charm. Jackman is charismatic as always, and develops suitable chemistry with Goyo, who is sassy and fun as "the kid." He has a recurring bit where he dances with the robot that would be cloying if it wasn't so cute.
But the movie is really bloated, chock full of extended sequences of loud, incomprehensible robo-violence, alternated with scenes of treacly father-son emo-bonding. All these scenes are begging and pleading for us to love them, but the persistence is at once amusing and annoying. Maybe if the film zeroed in on its most charming elements and delivered a lean, crowd-pleasing underdog story, the end result would be a standout piece of slick studio product. As it stands, Real Steel is an ungainly robo-epic that delivers bigger thuds than thrills.
