REAL STEEL

 

 

Real Steel is basically a flick about a bunch of robots beating the crap out of each other with a rather schmaltzy father-son story thrown in. Actually, Real Steel is a pretty entertaining little flick in spite of it being a not-so-subtle rip-off of other films--think Rocky with robots!--and you can see the ending coming a mile away. The film stars Hugh Jackman (of X-Men and Wolverine fame) who plays a rather sleazy former human boxer in the future who's barely eking out a living fighting robots which has completely replaced human boxing. Hugh's character gets informed that an ex-girlfriend of his has died thus leaving him the 11-year-old son he abandoned upon learning that his girlfriend was pregnant. Hugh's character agrees to take the boy temporarily in exchange for several thousand dollars. Along the way, Hugh's character begins bonding with his estranged son and . . . well, you already know where this is going, don't you? Anyway, along the way father & son pick up a discarded robot out of a robotic trash heap after the robot Hugh's character spends all the money he got for "watching" his own son gets thoroughly trashed in a robot boxing match. Over his father's initial objections, the son enters the robot--whom he names Atom--in an "underground" robot boxing match and--surprise!--Atom the Robot wins. Against all odds, Atom the Robot keeps winning robot boxing matches and ends up catching the eye of the robotic boxing big leagues. After winning a big match against the reigning robot boxing champion, Atom the Robot gets a shot at boxing Zeus, a robot boxer behemoth who's never lost a match. Again, you know where this is going, don't you? Like I said, Real Steel is an entertaining enough flick in spite of its, shall we say, familiar plot, and even I must admit I found myself rooting for Atom the Robot during his climatic match with Zeus (even though, there again, I knew how it was all going to turn out at the end). This flick would especially appeal to those who do in fact enjoy watching robots beating the crap out of each other (if they can overlook all the father-son schmaltz, that is!).