Real Steel review

  I'll be perfectly honest; I did not have high expectations going into this film. The commercials and trailers focused on this annoying kid and the guy who did the Night At The Museum films directed it. I only expected trouble with this film. But to my surprise, it was actually really entertaining.

  Real Steel is based off the 1956 short story "Steel" by Richard Matheson and is directed by Shawn Levy. The film stars Hugh Jackman, who plays a retired boxer who gets his money by gambling in illegal boxing matches between robots. However, things are made more complicated when his ex-girlfriend dies and he must look after his son Max (played by Dakota Goyo) for the summer. After another giant loss, they find this sparing bot called "Atom" who Max starts to bond with.

  The concept of this film is what would happen if Steven Spielberg directed Rocky. It follows that sort of underdog story where we are supposed to see ourselves in the main characters, but at the same time opens you to this alternate Earth where robots have replaced boxers. The film doesn't slow itself down with explanations as to why it is like this. A couple lines of dialogue are given, and you have to accept it.

  I think this really works to the film's advantage. We aren't subjected to long periods of exposition and instead we are treated to some well-choreographed boxing sequences and amazing robot designs. It really impresses me that the majority of the time we are seeing animatronics as opposed to computer-generated imagery. Even when they switched to CGI for the boxing matches, you couldn't tell the difference. Give the special effects team a raise and vacation!

  If I had any real problems with the film, it would have to be Hugh Jackman's character. Now, I don't blame Jackman, I blame the writers on this one. He really wasn't a likable character. Throughout the film, he just kept making stupid decisions that I just kept putting my head in my hands at. I was worried that the kid would be the worst thing in this film, but I actually think he was the best written character in this.

  Now, I understand that Jackman's character was supposed to be this jerk who made his mistakes and is just trying to redeem himself. That's fine, that has had worked in the past and there have been jerks in movies that were well-written and loved (Robert Downey Jr. in the Iron Man movies is one brilliant example). To be fair, he does get better as the film progresses, but I never watched him and thought he was well-written or likable.

  The rest of the cast are exceptional and the writing and interactions between each other was well done. However, the film does have some weird editing hiccups. Some subplots are dropped or brought up out of nowhere and it kind of makes you think what happened during the editing process. For example, the film from time to time implies that Atom has a human soul and emotions, and is much more than just a standard droid. Despite the couple of hints here and there, the film never goes in depth about it.

  You could say they wanted to avoid telling the "robot with human emotion" story, but if they wanted to avoid it, they should have just left these scenes out. They just feel a bit out of place with the rest of the film. Perhaps the DVD release will have an extended cut that explains more, but we'll just have to wait and see.

  Real Steel may not have been perfect; having to put up with an unlikable protagonist and some peculiar edits, but it is definitely a movie to check out. Try going for a matinee showing if possible.