By Geno McGahee
When I first saw the trailer for REAL STEEL, I had absolutely no interest in seeing it. I finally got around to watching it, due to my love of boxing and good press that the film got, and I was more than pleasantly surprised.
Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) is a former boxer that now controls robots in underground bouts to turn a buck. He owes just about everyone money and life is not that good. Even his robots aren’t fairing too well. When things go from bad to worse, he gets news that the mother of his child has died. Not being the nicest guy in the world, he immediately looks for the place to sign his 11 year old son over, but he sees an opportunity to make some money.
The aunt of Max (Dakota Goyo) wants full custody of her nephew and Charlie makes an offer to her husband. For 100 thousand dollars, he will sign him over but because the uncle wants some time alone with his wife, Charlie must take Max with him on the road as his robots turn a buck.
With the first installment of 50 thousand dollars, Charlie invests in a robot but it doesn’t go well, leading Charlie and Max to a junkyard and in search of parts to create a new robot to fight and make money. That’s when they find a “sparring bot,” named “Atom.” They take him to the shop, clean him up, install some software and get him ready to step into the ring of underground fighting.
Atom does well and eventually lands into a league fight and an eventual showdown with the undefeated, unbeatable monster robot, Zeus. This movie has been compared to ROCKY and rightfully so. It has a hopeless underdog taking on an unbeatable champion in a million to one shot and defying the odds, but it stands alone as a unique movie experience with some noticeable influence.
The story isn’t the robots. The story is the damaged relationship between Charlie and his son Max and how the experience of bringing Atom to the top has repaired it and really made Charlie a much better person. You can’t help but to initially dislike Charlie, but at the end, you are rooting for him. This is an incredibly fun movie.
Although Atom was a robot, there was a human side to him and he was easy to like. The fight scenes are outstanding and exciting. I was often cheering out loud for Atom to fight back against Zeus. It was just a fantastic film.
REAL STEEL is a winner. I highly recommend it.
Rating: 8/10