Put simply, Real Steel is an atrocious exercise in slapping robots about, and has less overall entertainment value than playing with Transformer action figures while taking a bath.
Admittedly, the boxing sequences are well thought out and exciting. Good sound design and skillful editing make for fights as exciting as any from Rocky or Transformers. It’s a bit surprising, considering director Shawn Levy’s previous work (the Night at the Museum franchise).
Watch any other scene, though, and you’ll find Levy’s grubby mark all over the place. Real Steel follows the tale of a down on his luck former boxer turned robot boxer trainer (Hugh Jackman, X-Men Origins: Wolverine). After spectacularly losing a fight and his last robot due to excessive hubris, Jackman comes into temporary custody of his estranged son (Dakota Goyo, Thor).
Said son comes across a robot in a heavy-handed sequence in a junkyard (think a biblical amount of torrential rain) that the two eventually repair and enter into a series of fights. Surprise, surprise — the trashed robot wins a few matches, becoming the underdog you’re supposed to root for in a sports film.
I suppose Jackman also counts as scrappy underdog, though you’ll more likely be rooting for his son to be taken away than for him to succeed. See, every one of the characters in Real Steel share a glaring flaw: They’re all equally and massively unlikable.
The relatives with legal custody of Jackman’s son are unlikable because they’re bourgeois snobs. Jackman is unlikable because he is an insensitive jerk with the common sense of a mentally challenged mole rat. You can’t even take sadistic pleasure in seeing Jackman’s character get beaten down in the first half because the villains are, somehow, even more unlikable.
The son is unlikable because Goyo leans on the precocious 10-year-old throttle way too hard. The generic love interest is unlikable because she solely exists to spout expository dialogue developing Jackman’s unlikable character.
Real Steel is every bit as ludicrous and overwrought as Michael Bay’s Transformers series, but it doesn’t have the good sense to take itself as such. Whenever the characters are being loathsome, the movie gets smothered in the sheer ridiculousness of its conceit and how seriously the filmmakers take themselves.
I didn’t know whether or not to laugh at the scene in which the movie intends for us to root for Jackman, previously established as an immensely irresponsible and permanently in-debt father, to take custody of his annoying brat over rich, responsible and loving relatives.
The fights, though thrilling, lack any significance or value when taken in context of the nauseatingly awful characters and cliché-ridden storytelling. If robot-on-robot action is the only thing you’re looking for, consider renting Real Steel on DVD and fast-forwarding to the good bits. Otherwise, just go play with some Voltron action figures.
VERDICT: Thanks to spectacularly awful characterization, Real Steel is less pleasant to endure than getting a root canal.
chzhang@umdbk.com
