Real Steel, which I keep wanting to mistype as "Reel Steal", is a sci-fi family comedy sort of thing starring Hugh Jackman, Dakota Goyo, Evangeline Lilly, Kevin Durand, Anthony Mackie, Karl Yune, and Hope Davis.
In the distant future year of...2020, robot boxing has supplanted human boxing as the violent sport of choice, which only makes sense. As our lead character Charlie Kenton (Jackman) explains it, the public's appetite for carnage conflicted with frail squishy human bodies.
Charlie is a former boxer himself, and maybe coulda been a contender, but has fallen into a dark cycle of scraping together enough money to buy or build a bot and then losing it on stupid fights, winding up more in debt than he started. He loses the first fight we see him take to a bull in a kind of rodeo fight, and ends up owing a lot of money to Ricky (Durand, who goes on to put a bunch of muscle on for Abigail, the point that I didn't recognize him here), who promises to kick his ass for it.
And then Charlie learns that his former girlfriend has died, meaning he needs to go and sign over custody of his son Max (Goyo) to Max's aunt Debra (Davis). In the process, however, he learns that Debra's husband (James Rebhorn) is rich, and shakes him down for a bunch of money in exchange for taking Max for the summer.
Charlie's initial plan is to dump him with his friend/ex Bailey (Lilly), but Max proves too savvy for that, so Charlie takes him along. Charlie buys a bot with some promise and immediately loses it taking a stupid fight, and he and Charlie salvage a sparring bot named Atom, which Max fixes up into a robo-boxer. They take Atom on a series of fights culminating in a battle for the title against ZEUS! Which they lose by decision, but gain an appreciation for the power of love.
Real Steel is one of those movies that I forget how charming it is until I rewatch it. It's not good, exactly, but it benefits from having a strong cast (Jackman, sure, but Lilly manages to take a role that could be Girlfriend and actually inject some character and life) and some good effects (a mix of practical, motion capture, and CGI that wind up looking really solid). The basic storyline is Rocky, sure, but that's a good story, and I give credit to Jackman for making Charlie's evolution feel gradual rather than suddenly becoming the good guy after Max's near-death in the junkyard.
I also appreciate that Debra and her husband attend the title fight at the end and support Max and Charlie - their concern has always been Max, and once it becomes clear that Charlie really wants to be part of his life and that's a positive thing for Max, they're on board. I think the Ricky storyline could have done with a little more attention (as it is, Ricky beats the snot out of Charlie, robs him and Max, then places a large bet against Atom in the title fight, loses, and gets dragged out of the arena by Finn (Mackie) and his boys - gimme me one scene or one line where we find out that he's in the hospital or selling off his bulls to pay Finn back or something). But otherwise, it's a fairly tight little movie and nice popcorn fare.
My Grade: B
Rewatch Value: High
Next up: Thor: Love & Thunder
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