Real Steel [2011]

Real Steel, I guess who thought of this title felt like a genius… The idea of giants robots fighting in the arena instead of humans has been already explored in Futurama series (Raging Bender if I remember correctly), and watching Reel Steel I got the feeling that I already saw the entire movie before. First lets get one thing straight, this is not going to be a cult movie like similar ones made in the eighties. Too little effort went towards the story and technicalities, and this might remind you of the eighties style, but in those movies underneath that layer was a very real and life-like vibe. Plus the kid is incredibly annoying with his grander than life attitude, when he grabbed the mic at that fight I almost punched my beloved ViewSonic (later I apologized to him and fiddled with his frequencies). This leaves totally realistic and awesome special effects that will be the highlight of Reel Steel. Although robots are considered to be relatively easy to make and animate I still admire the effort that went into this movie.

In a near alternate future robot boxing is a common and very popular sport, I mean who wouldn’t wanna see giant robots smash each other on stage. These robots are still controlled by humans and one of those humans is Charlie Kenton. He’s in a quite a pickle, with some beat-up robot and without any funds, so when he’s summoned to court to discuss the custody of his son that he hasn’t seen, the last things he wants is more complications in his life. Soon the businessman in him starts thinking that this is not such a bad thing so he cuts a deal with kid’s cousins to take him for the summer for a certain amount of money. What he didn’t know is that Max loves robots, and when he accidentally uncovers a long forgotten G2 robot called Atom two of them will slowly start building their path to the glory, and a final fight against the current champion Zeus.

Director: Shawn Levy

Cast: Hugh Jackman, Dakota Goyo, Evangeline Lilly, Anthony Mackie, Kevin Durand, Hope Davis

Fun Facts: Much of the robot boxing fights were motion-captured using professional boxers, supervised by Sugar Ray Leonard.

Rating:

IMDb Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0433035/