On 29 September 2023, I watched the American sci fi movie Real Steel, which was based upon a 1956 short story entitled 'Steel', written by American sci fi/fantasy author and screenwriter Richard Matheson. Other writings by him that have been turned into major movies include the novels I Am Legend and What Dreams May Come plus several others, as well as the short story 'Duel' (featuring that infamously maniacal, psychotic but never seen on screen lorry driver). So I was hoping for a thrilling watch, and I wasn't disappointed.
Directed by Shawn Levy, including Steven Spielberg (from Dreamworks) and Robert Zemeckis (from Disney) as executive producers, and released in 2011 by Dreamworks Studios and Touchstone Pictures, Real Steel is set in what was then the near future (2020) when boxing matches no longer feature human pugilists but giant robots instead, programmed and remotely-controlled by their human owners.
Hugh Jackman plays former boxer (of the human kind) Charlie Kenton who is now a driven bot owner, but is down on his luck after his latest bot is totally thrashed and trashed in a rigged fight with a colossal steer. In addition, he finds himself attending a custody hearing for his 11-year-old son Max (Dakota Goyo) whom he has never met, after Max's mother, a former girlfriend of Charlie, dies unexpectedly.
Her sister Debra (Hope Davis) wants legal custody of Max, and Charlie does a shady deal with Debra's husband Marvin (James Rebhorn) behind her back to receive a sizeable payment if he allows them to adopt Max, but if he also looks after Max for 3 months while Debra and Marvin go on an extended summer holiday.
The money that Charlie duly receives enables him to buy a very superior bot, but once again his luck fails him and the bot is soon destroyed in a boxing match. However, Max, who has become increasingly interested in bot boxing from being with Charlie, uncovers at a junkyard an abandoned, dilapidated sparring bot of an early, long since surpassed grade, whose chest-plate name is Atom, and after restoring it he persuades Charlie to help him train Atom to box.
There is also a romantic subplot, featuring Charlie and Bailey Tallet (Evangeline Lilly), the feisty, all-grown-up daughter of Charlie's former boxing coach, and who now owns her late father's boxing gym. Bailey acts to a degree as a surrogate mother to Max while he is living with Charlie, and she also assists them, albeit sometimes reluctantly on account of Charlie's gung-ho approach, in the development of Atom.
The rest of the film follows the familiar themes of estranged father and son bonding via a common interest, and an underdog competitor beating all of the odds to reach the pinnacle – in this instance, Atom is pitted against the world's undefeated bot boxer, the mighty Zeus, in the resplendent Real Steel stadium. But can underdog Atom pull off the surprise win of all wins against this god-like entity that has been created by multi-millionaire genius robot inventor/designer Tak Mashido (Karl Yune) and programmed by him with the pugilistic knowledge of every modern-day boxing bot in existence?
Or might Zeus be taken aback by a much less powerful, far more primitive boxing bot, yet one that had been created back in the distant days when such bots were much more human both in form and in their style of boxing? Moreover, Atom has even been trained to box by a human boxer (Charlie), and therefore is far more unpredictable in tactics than modern boxing bots. Think Rocky with robots, plus a transfusion of Transformers, and you'll have a fair idea of what to expect, more or less…
As might be expected from such a film and storyline, Real Steel is packed with superb bot-engendering effects, for which the robots were created in real physical form (and controlled by puppeteers) as well as via CGI (featuring motion-capture using professional boxers supervised by boxing legend Sugar Ray Leonard). Indeed, this movie received an Academy Award nomination for Best Visual Effects (but lost to Hugo).
Having said that, Real Steel took a while to fully engage my interest, because beneath the bot facade it is really a sporting movie, and I am no sports fan. Even so, by about the halfway mark of its 2-hour run time I'd settled in, and became ever more drawn into the increasingly gripping storyline as it sped on towards its climactic David vs Goliath robo-gladiatorial confrontation between Atom and Zeus, augmented throughout by the excellent, empathic performances of Jackman and Goyo.
In short, Real Steel proved to be an unexpectedly entertaining movie for me, and is certainly well worth watching by everyone, but especially by sports fans, and video gamers too.
Additionally, a TV series is reportedly under development for Disney+, and a sequel movie starring Jackman again, as well as Ryan Reynolds conceivably, is also being considered – the latter in particular would be a delight, I'm sure, in view of the firm bond of comedy chemistry between these two actors as seen in the wonderful Deadpool movies (click here and here for my Deadpool reviews).
Meanwhile, if you'd like to view some belligerent boxing of the steel-sculpted variety, be sure to click here to watch an official Real Steel trailer on YouTube.
Finally: to view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.
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