Real Steel (2011)

Release Date: 10/07/2011
Rating: PG13
Runtime: 2 hr 6 mins
Genre: Science fiction, Drama
Director: Shawn Levy
Cast: Hugh Jackman, Dakota Goyo, Anthony Mackie, Evangeline Lilly

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What Critics Say

Hugh Jackman is the undisputed champion of this robot-boxing epic.

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By Thomas Leupp

Real Steel – the new sci-fi sports flick from Night at the Museum director Shawn Levy – is set in the year 2020. Its vision of the future looks remarkably similar to the present, save for the fact that the sport of boxing has been taken over by pugilistic robots. There are no robot butlers, taxi drivers, or senators – just boxers. Apparently, technology in 2020 has advanced enough to allow for the creation of massive mechanized beings of astonishing dexterity, but humanity has found no use for them beyond the boxing ring.

Hugh Jackman plays Charlie Kenton, a has-been boxer turned small-time robot-fight promoter. A consummate hustler who’ll do anything for a buck, Charlie’s fallen on hard times of late. Opportunity arrives in the diminutive guise of 11-year-old Max (Dakota Goyo), his estranged son, who turns out to be something of an electronics wunderkind. Together they work to fashion Atom, an obsolete, ramshackle “sparring robot” left to rot in a junkyard, into a contender.

Anyone who’s seen an underdog sports movie – or any movie, for that matter – made in the last half-century can fairly easily ascertain how this one plays out. (The story borrows tropes from The Champ, Rocky, and Over the Top wholesale.) Atom proves surprisingly capable in the ring, compensating for his inferior technology with grit, perseverance, and an ability to absorb massive amounts of punishment. Under the guidance of Charlie and Max, he makes an improbable run through the ranks, eventually earning a one-in-a-million shot at the World Robot Boxing championship.

Real Steel was executive-produced by Steven Spielberg; it bears his unmistakable imprint. Levy judiciously deploys Spielberg’s patented blockbuster mix of dazzling special effects and gooey sentiment, wrapping it all in a highly polished if wholly synthetic package. Still, Real Steel might have amounted to so much glossy hokum were it not for its champion, Hugh Jackman. Other actors might eye such a project as an opportunity to coast for an easy paycheck, but damned if Jackman isn’t completely invested. The film’s underdog storyline isn’t nearly as inspiring as watching its star so gamely devote himself to selling material that will strike anyone over the age of 12 as patently ludicrous. His efforts pay off handsomely: Real Steel is about as rousing and affecting as any film inspired by Rock’em, Sock’em Robots can expect to be. (The filmmakers claim lineage to a short story-turned-Twilight Zone episode, but who are they kidding?)