Real Steel
Director: Shawn Levy
Cast: Hugh Jackman, Dakota Goyo, Evangeline Lilly
Rated: PG-13
Running time: 127 minutes
Everyone making important decisions in Hollywood is around my age now. I know this because every time I'm asked, "Hey, do you remember that great toy"
Well, sure enough, they're making a movie out of it. This time someone decided rock 'em sock 'em robots were the coolest thing ever, so they would obviously make a great movie. They were both very right, and very, very wrong.
Hugh Jackman plays an ex-boxer who travels around the underground, remote-controlled robot boxing circuit. He gambles himself into a hole deep enough for him to take money to look after his own 11-year-old, played by Dakota Goyo. Dakota finds an old scrap heap robot and the two take him all the way to the top. Along for the ride is the oh-just-get-together-already relationship with Evangeline Lilly, who owns the robot boxing club.
OK, I understand product placement is necessary in today's filmmaking. However, I was more than a little put out by the continuous stream of energy drinks (a.k.a. harmful drugs if you believe the medical community) going into the kid.
But in the end I have enough little boy in me to think robots kicking the crap out of each other is super cool, with an exclamation point no less. Luckily, many recent films have given us this (Transformers, Iron Man). Here, we have robots fighting and it is pretty cool. Unfortunately, they're being controlled by humans who are wasting time doing and saying stupid things when they should be shutting up and getting on with what the people came to see: Robot bash kill.
