Thursday, October 06, 2011

Real Steel - Movie Review


In a world where intimidating robots have replaced human boxing, Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman), a former boxer, is trying to make some money with his robot, but always ends up losing. His ex-girlfriend dies and only takes in their 11-year old son, Max (Dakota Goyo) in exchange for cash. When they discover an old sparring bot in a junkyard, Max brings it home, cleans it up and Charlie gets him his first fight. He names the robot Atom and after a couple of amazing victories, they gain a following, which leads to Atom getting a fight in the big leagues. Max challenges the undefeated champion, Zeus, a huge and fast black robot that is designed by Tak Mashido (Karl Yune), a Japanese whiz.

Real Steel was a pretty good David vs Goliath movie, typical of an underdog story that Disney really likes to make. Gruff down-on-his-luck dad redeems himself with his son he ran out on is a heartwarming story you have seen many times. The robots were pretty cool looking, and I thought the scenes where the robot shadows the actions of a person were really cool. I'm not sure if it's meant to be a family movie, given that when you think about it, it's really quite violent with bots basically fighting each other to death. There is a ton of product placement in this movie (HP much?) and the gadgets look really sleek (it is the year 2020). Real Steel was a decent movie, and hey, if you don't like it, there's always Hugh Jackman to look at!

Real Steel comes out in theatres and IMAX this Friday, October 7th.


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