Director: Shawn Levy
Writers: John Gatins, Dan
Gilroy, Jeremy Leven, Richard Matheson (short story “Steel”)
Starring: Hugh Jackman,
Dakota Goyo, Evangeline Lilly, Anthony Mackie, Kevin Durand, Hope Davis, James
Rebhorn, Karl Yune, Olga Fonda
I’d heard a lot of good
things about “Real Steel”. People called it a good classic sports movie, but
with robots. It drew a lot of comparisons to “Rocky”, which make a lot of sense
considering the film’s conclusion and subject matter. It’s a good family film,
despite a PG-13 rating, which is becoming a nearly meaningless film rating. The
PG-13 can be anything from a family friendly superhero flick to a depraved sex
comedy that only avoids the ‘R’ rating by not using curse words for what they
actually mean.
“Real Steel” is all the
things I heard about it, and I can’t see it offending many viewers with its
solid portrayal of a deadbeat dad who connects with his kid after the mother
dies through their mutual obsession with robot boxing. Oh, it’s important to
note that the story takes place in the near future when remote controlled
robots have replaced human boxers. The movie isn’t incredibly clear about why
this switch occurred. I suspect it has to do with safety issues, as audiences
demand more violent contests. It seems the movie misses the boat on making a
bold statement about the world of professional sports today and how increasing
fanaticism fuels the dangers involved for the contestants.
Instead, it eschews any such
statements to give the audience a human drama. This approach is more palatable
to audiences, but it also cuts to my problems with the movie. They’re robots in
the ring. I don’t care about them when they hit each other. I have no
investment in the actual contestants. Yes, it is the people who control those
robots that carry the emotional weight of the story, and the filmmakers do a
very good job investing the audience in their story. However, when we see a
scene where two hulking, CGI-created, metal hunks of junk pound on each other
in the ring, my mind immediately leaps to the thought, “So what?” I also have a
hard time believing that the sport of boxing could retain fans with such
enthusiasm for contests between video gaming geeks operating remote control
robots.
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