Film Review | Real Steel

How do you make a film about robot boxing even remotely engaging? Simple – you make a film about robot boxing, and you stop yourself from trying to do anything else.

Director Shawn Levy – crowd-pleaser extraordinaire responsible for cross-generational hits such as Night at the Museum (and its sequel) – presents a film that’s so easy to scoff at you begin to suspect it’s really all that innocent.

For starters, the premise is as simple and airtight as a fairy tale. We’re taken to somewhere in the vague future, where robot-boxing has become a lucrative, national sport. Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) was once a robot boxer of the first league, but a few bad games have uppercut him out into bankruptcy, and he is now reduced to back-door brawls with scrap yard leftover robots.

His lifelong friend – and will-they-won’t-they love interest – Bailey (Evangeline Lilly) meanwhile tolerates him staying in her father’s gym, though she’s at the end of her tether with Charlie, who appears incapable of getting his groove back.

One day, Charlie discovers that his ex-girlfriend has died, leaving behind a son, Max (Dakota Goyo), who happens to be his. Charlie strikes a deal with Max’s wealthy uncle – who is keen to get to Tuscany for the summer with his wife – that he will keep Max while they’re away, on the condition that he’s paid $50,000 for the trouble.

The flush of cash gives Charlie a good kick in the right direction… what he wasn’t expecting, though, was for his estranged son to have a hidden talent in robot boxing and, even less so, that a bond will develop between the two that’ll be difficult to break off.

We all know where this is going – we have a fair share of Disney films embedded in our psyche, right? – and, what’s more, it does actually go there.

But don’t we sometimes go to the movies to feel reassured? Levy ticks all the right boxes without you caring, which is the sign of a populist filmmaker of promise.

Like vintage Spielberg, he balances action and emotion in a way that’ll make you feel young again… which is all the more relevant now that old Steven seems to be drifting into murky waters… with the dubious-looking Tin Tin, not to mention him sponsoring mediocre fare like Cowboys vs. Aliens, as well as that other – far more bloated, far more cynical – robot extravaganza: Michael Bay’s stomping CGI kitschfest, the Transformers saga.

In a way, this is Transformers’s more honest runt of a cousin: it reaches out to the heart – as well as the eyeballs – and even the special effects never overwhelm the experience.

A lot of this is down to Jackman. He’s established himself as a hunk with a heart of gold, and while he’s never been the most flexible of actors for precisely that reason, Charlie is practically written for him, making suspension of disbelief practically for the impossible.

Perhaps it should come with a ‘Boys Only’ tag, but the fact remains that it could have been a lot, lot worse.