Movie Review: Real Steel

I mean, it’s still pretty dumb, but in an enjoyable way. It kind of felt like Over The Top or The Wizard. It’s the kind of movie that the 10 years old you might want to rent at the video store every weekend. Since I’m an adult, I’m forced to point out that this film takes place in 2020. If you see the movie, don’t think about that too much. Basically all that is going to change in the next 8 years and 2 months is that we will have robot boxing. That’s the biggest (and really, only) technological advancement.

Hugh Jackman plays a deadbeat dad who sells his kid to his dead ex-girlfriend’s sister. The only catch is, Jackman has to watch the kid for the summer while the sister and her sugar daddy take a trip to Paris or something. That doesn’t really matter. So Jackman, a former boxer and current robot boxer takes his kid on the road and zany antics and father-son bonding ensues. To Jackman’s credit, he’s pretty entertaining in the film. You would think “robot boxing movie” would be the one that Wolverine would mail in, but no.

Jackman’s kid is a goober who thinks his fighting robot has feelings or something. The robot’s name is Atom. Tragically, they didn’t choose to name the robot “Huge Ackman.” (I think that’s from a FilmDrunk comments section. I can’t remember.) Anyway, it turns out that Atom has a mirror function which is really awesome and incredibly effective, but also outdated. The only reason a mirror function is important in this movie is that we get to see the kid teach the robot to dance.

Anyway, Atom becomes a super important robot boxer and he takes on the biggest baddest Klitschko of a robot boxer, Zeus. Only in the final fight of the film do we get a look at what robot boxing rules look like. There are five 5-minute rounds like in a UFC championship bout. Between rounds, the robots go to their corners and get worked on, just like real boxers. What is the point of that? I have no idea. They’re freaking robots.

Anyway, if you have kids and you don’t mind them hearing a few bad words, this is a pretty sweet movie. Real Steel is a fun, dumb movie. Clocking in at around the same run-time (127 minutes) as Moneyball (133 minutes), the movie actually flies by. This isn’t high art, but it is about as good as a robot boxing movie could possibly be.

Warning: SPOILER ALERT
The final fight ends with Atom taking a decision loss to Zeus. Seeing a robot boxing match come down to a decision is one of the most mind-boggling things I have ever seen.