REAL STEEL

 

My official UK DVD of Real Steel (© Shawn Levy/21 Laps Entertainment/Montford Murphy Productions/Dreamworks Pictures/Dreamworks Studios/Touchstone Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

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.

R.I.P.D.

 

Publicity poster for R.I.P.D. (© Robert Schwentke/Dark Horse Entertainment/Original Film/Universal Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

My movie watch on 27 August 2022 was the totally zany supernatural/comedy movie R.I.P.D., which was inspired by the Dark Horse comic of the same name written by Peter Lenkov.

Directed by Robert Schwentke, and released in 2013 by Universal Pictures, R.I.P.D. begins both dramatically and unexpectedly – with the death of its lead character! Boston police detective Nick Walker (played by Ryan Reynolds) is murdered in cold blood by his corrupt partner Bobby Hayes (Kevin Bacon) after Nick decides to hand in some gold that they had secretly found during a recent drug bust.

However, as this would be a very short and singularly pointless movie if that were the end of it, we swiftly discover that a radically new plot is about to unfurl. For the now newly-deceased Nick finds himself transported up through a divine vortex into an afterlife where he faces two choices – judgement, or joining the Boston division of a celestial police corp known as the R.I.P.D. (Rest In Peace Department).

Choosing the latter (as he is by no means certain that his life had been acceptable enough for him to pass the former!), Nick is assigned an older, more experienced, but somewhat ornery partner, Roy Pulsifer (Jeff Bridges, after original choice Zack Galifianakis turned it down due to a prior filming commitment). For Roy is still very much the Wild West lawman that he was when alive a century ago (until he too was murdered by his own evil partner).

Nick learns from Roy that the R.I.P.D. covertly exists on Earth to seize and if necessary erase Deados – evil souls who have deliberately escaped judgement. Deados appear totally human to normal living persons, but if challenged by an R.I.P.D. officer they 'pop' into their true form, which is usually monstrous.

While tracking down Deados with Roy, Nick finds out that Bobby has discovered the gold that he had planned to hand in, and is also in cahoots with various Deados, leading Nick to suspect that Bobby may be more than he appears to be. Sure enough, Bobby is subsequently exposed as a Deado himself, and the gold that he has been collecting constitutes the final portion of an ancient device known as the Staff of Jericho.

Moreover, when it is fully assembled this immensely powerful Staff will reverse the vortex that Nick and all other dead souls have passed through from Earth to the afterlife, resulting in the dead travelling back to Earth, which in turn will be totally overwhelmed. So Nick and Roy now face a critical race against time to prevent Bobby from activating the Staff of Jericho and destroying the land of the living.

R.I.P.D. is extremely entertaining – apart from when my DVD stuck at the 50-minute mark and required a wipe with washing-up liquid to unstick it, I never took my eyes off this movie once. Think of a mash-up of Men In Black and Ghostbusters, but funnier than both, and you have R.I.P.D.

Indeed, my only criticism re this movie was that Roy's Old West accent as supplied by Bridges was so thick as to be incomprehensible to me at times, so I missed out on quite a few of his wisecracks, but otherwise R.I.P.D. was a delight, with excellent CGI effects.

There is also a wonderful running joke concerning the fact that in order to avoid being recognised by their still-living family, friends, and others who knew them when they were alive, all R.I.P.D. officers assume a drastically-different set appearance when pursuing Deados back on Earth. In Nick's case, it is an elderly Chinese man, whereas in Roy's it is, incongruously, an incredibly beautiful, voluptuous young woman with long blonde hair! Cue some hilarious interactions between them and members of the general public along the way, especially when they encounter Roy's alluring avatar!

Plus, any comedy film with Ryan Reynolds in it has to be good – in fact, I've never yet seen an R.R. movie of any genre that I haven't enjoyed (blatant plug here for Deadpool!). Conversely, the critics apparently hated R.I.P.D. – but for me this was actually another reliable indication that I'd like it, and which was duly confirmed yet again! Moreover, a sequel, provisionally titled R.I.P.D. 2: Rise of the Damned, is currently in development by Universal, so they clearly have faith in its success.

If you'd like to check out the Rest In Peace Department's afterlife activities for yourself, be sure to click here to watch an official R.I.P.D. trailer – it's dead funny (sorry!). And click here to view a trailer-length animated back story for Roy – how he came to be killed by his own deceiving original partner way out West.

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.

 

FREE GUY

 

Publicity poster for Free Guy (© Shawn Levy/Berlanti Productions/21 Laps Entertainment/Maximum Effort/Lit Entertainment Group/TSG Entertainment/20^th Century Studios/Walt Disney Studios – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

After viewing various trailers for it in impotent impatience at not being able to view the movie itself, on 12 December 2021 I purchased its DVD and later that day finally watched Free Guy – the newish but covid-delayed sci-fi/fantasy comedy/action movie starring one of my favourite actors ever since first watching him in Deadpool (not to mention Deadpool 2, and Once Upon A Deadpool). Yes indeed, none other than the irrepressible and extremely funny Ryan Reynolds, at the top of his game, in every sense.

Directed and co-produced by Shawn Levy, with Reynolds as another of its co-producers, and finally released by 20th Century Studios and Walt Disney Studios in August 2021, Free Guy stars Reynolds as Blue Shirt Guy, initially an NPC (non-participating character) in an online multi-player video game called Free City. In best Groundhog Day fashion, Guy follows exactly the same storyline every time the game is played by anyone, as a blue shirt-wearing bank teller who falls to the ground when a gang of robbers bursts into the bank where he works.

However, and this time in best They Live fashion, after donning a pair of sunglasses normally worn only by the game's heroes and villains (the participating characters controlled by the online players), Guy can now see all the gaming cues and prompts that only the players see. This revelation in turn gives him self-awareness of what he is, and that his friends and this city in which they live are all part of that same video game, all mere simulations.

But with self-awareness comes self-dissatisfaction, as Guy now yearns to become his own person, in control of his own destiny, especially when he falls in love with Molotov Girl, a character who turns out to be the gaming avatar of Millie Rusk (both played by Jodie Comer). Millie and her computer geek friend Keys (Joe Keery) created another game, but one whose source code has been cunningly snaffled and hidden within the code of Free City by their ruthless rival, the egotistical megalomaniac Antwan Hovachelik (Taika Waititi, who also starred with Reynolds way back in the super-hero movie Green Lantern – click here to watch a very funny mini-interview in which this fact is inconveniently mentioned to Reynolds, whose dislike of Green Lantern is well documented).

Moreover, Antwan's love for Free City (based, incidentally, upon Grand Theft Auto III and IV's Liberty City) and the vast amount of money that he earns from it knows no bounds (indeed, it is exceeded only by his all-embracing love for himself!). So he is not going to concede to Millie's claims without one truly epic fight. But will Guy come to Millie's rescue and save the day for everyone? What do you think?!

As required for such a storyline, the CGI special effects in Free Guy are incredible, and I'm happy to say that Reynolds is full of Deadpoolesque wisecracks and quips. Amusingly, a Deadpool poster featuring him in this role actually appears briefly in one scene, and a Deadpool figurine appears in another! Also worth looking or listening out for are various characters played or voiced by the likes of Channing Tatum, Hugh Jackman, and Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson.

Plus there is a truly hilarious scene where Guy is confronted by a character called Dude who has Guy's (i.e. Reynolds's) face but a body of Schwarzeneggerian proportions (supplied by real-life bodybuilder Aaron W. Reed). In increasingly frenzied attempts to defeat Dude, Guy employs all manner of iconic weapons against him, including a Star Wars light sabre, the Incredible Hulk's fists, and Captain America's shield (cue a brief cameo from Captain America star Chris Evans). There is also a sweet, poignant, but fitting twist right at the end of the movie, which I won't reveal, as it makes a perfect finale to what for me is a perfect film.

I should point out, incidentally, that Free Guy apparently contains all manner of gaming in-jokes and subtle gaming product links, as well as cameos by some YouTube gamer celebrities, that my computer and video gamer friends spotted instantly and greatly relished when they watched this movie. Conversely, I regret to confess that the presence of such inserts escaped me completely (until I read or was told about them afterwards), as I've never been into gaming. Hey ho, you win some, you lose some.

Not that not spotting them spoilt my enjoyment of this movie in even the slightest way. No indeed, for me Free Guy was a total delight, keeping me thoroughly entertained for the best part of 100 mins (excluding the lengthy end credits, which I laboriously sat through in case they contained any inserted additional scenes – they didn't). There are now plans for a sequel - can't wait!!

And if you'd like to venture into the cyberworld of Free City yourself, all that you need do is click here and here to watch a couple of sensational official Free Guy trailers on YouTube!

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.

 

ONCE UPON A DEADPOOL

 

The official Region 1 Blu-Ray/DVD dual pack of Once Upon A Deadpool (sadly, it has never been released in Region 2, UK/Europe, format) (© Tim Miller/20^th Century Fox/Marvel Entertainment/Kinberg Genre/The Donners' Company/TSG Entertainment - reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

After inflicting untold and unprecedented misery upon the entire world, 2020 is in dire need of being booted into touch at the end of today – and who better to apply said boot than Deadpool? So here, as the subject of my final Shuker In MovieLand review for this year, is a lesser-known cinematic offering starring him.

After purchasing online several months ago a Region 1 Blu-Ray/DVD dual pack of Once Upon A Deadpool from the States that, sadly, never arrived, getting a refund, then recently purchasing another one of it that, happily, did arrive, on 2 December 2020 I finally managed to watch this interesting departure from the typical pathway trodden by Deadpool movies.

 

My two official Marvel resin Deadpool figurines (© Marvel / photo © Dr Karl Shuker - reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

This is because Once Upon A Deadpool, released in December 2016, is a special toned-down PG-13 version of Deadpool 2, starring Ryan Reynolds as Marvel Comics' irrepressible Wade Wilson/Deadpool – my all-time favourite comic book anti-/super-hero and fourth wall demolisher par excellence.

As a massive Deadpool fan, I had already watched and greatly enjoyed the unedited Deadpool 2 (click here to read my Shuker In MovieLand review of it, plus my review of the first Deadpool movie). Consequently, the reason why I also wanted this milder version is that it is actually much more than just that.

 

Wearing my official Deadpool & Wolverine t-shirt (© Marvel / photo © Dr Karl Shuker - reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

For Once Upon A Deadpool contains several hilarious new segments featuring Deadpool reading the actual story of the movie (which is the same as in Deadpool 2) to an adult Fred Savage, who famously starred many years earlier as an unrelentingly nice, sweet-natured child in The Wonder Years TV show. Moreover, this initially unexpected addition is soon revealed to be a wickedly funny parody of the fantasy movie The Princess Bride (1987), which of course opened with Peter Falk telling a sanitised version of the movie's storyline to a young Fred in bed – even the bedroom in which the Deadpool segments are shot is a direct take-off of the bedroom in The Princess Bride.

Being a Deadpool movie, however, there is naturally a twist, which is that Fred is tied down, so he has to listen to Deadpool reading him the story, whether or not he wants to – which he definitely doesn't at the beginning! Priceless, and well worth the trials and tribulations endured by me in obtaining the DVD of this film.

 

My plastic Deadpool & Wolverine poster that tields three different images depending upon the angle at which it is viewed (© Marvel / photo © Dr Karl Shuker - reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Additionally, despite the veritable avalanche of expletives and mindless violence that so characterize Deadpool movies, Once Upon A Deadpool still successfully entertains with consummate ease even though these twin trademarks are largely absent – an interesting turn of events. Equally interesting - or, to be precise, ironic - is that here in the UK, Once Upon A Deadpool actually received the very same film classification ratings certificate, 15, as the unexpurgated Deadpool 2 did! As my American friends would say, go figure!

If you're a Deadpool fan, or even just a fan of super-heroes in general, you definitely need to see Once Upon a Deadpool – a wonderful addition to the Deadpool movie canon. So, to whet your appetite, click here to view its official trailer, and here to view the delightfully droll opening scene, in which Fred finds himself to be a captive audience of Deadpool – literally!

 

My official Marvel/Hasbro 12"-tall Deadpool action figure (© Marvel/Hasbro / photo © Dr Karl Shuker - reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

And to view a complete 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! 

 

Photo-still from the highly amusing opening scene in Once Upon A Deadpool (© Tim Miller/20^th Century Fox/Marvel Entertainment/Kinberg Genre/The Donners' Company/TSG Entertainment - reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)