Real Steel

Plot synopsis:
We open to Charlie (Hugh Jackman) driving through the country to a nice mellow song, pulling up a trailer to a county fair. He's scheduled to fight his old robot, Ambush, against an 800 pound bull. The ring leader rigs the fight, however, and uses a 2,000 fighting bull instead of the agreed-upon matchup. Charlie and Ambush still holds their own, however, until Charlie gets distracted with a girl in the stands. The bull takes it opportunity and hits the bot from behind, severing it's leg. Ambush gets up on one leg, hoping to hop to a victory, but the broken bot is no match for the bull.Charlie bet more money than he had on the fight, and leaves town before they come to collect the debt. Meanwhile, his son, Max (Dakota Goyo), who was in the full custody of his Mother, loses his mom and, based on Texas state law, must be turned over to the father, Charlie. His aunt offers to take custody, and Charlie blackmails her rich husband for $100,000 to sign the papers. He gets half up-front, and uses the money to buy an old first generation champion bot, Noisy Boy. With the help of Max and Bailey (Evangeline Lilly), his old love and the daughter of the man who coached his human boxing career years earlier, he gets it to obey his commands. However, due to his enthusiasm and excitement, he doesn't take the time to properly train and prepare with the new bot, and immediately takes it to a fight. The bot's reputation gets it into the top fight against Midas, but Charlie's inexperience and showboating costs him the fight, losing not only the money, but the famous bot.After his last bot becomes trashed, Charlie takes Max to the junkyard to scour parts to try and fix up one of the old bots. After a dangerous fall, Max finds a buried robot, but Charlie doesn't see the potential. Charlie says that he'll consider it if Max digs it up, so Max stays through the night to recover the bot. After getting it to the gym, they reboot it and find out it has a rare Shadow Function, but that is the only piece of value Charlie sees, while Max sees an amazing machine. The bot was "Generation II, barely", and it was built as a sparring bot for higher-class bots. It was designed to take a heavy beating, and mimic moves of other bots to help train the fighters, but was never designed to fight itself. After failing to get a loan from an old friend, Max finally convinces Charlie to give the robot a shot in a fight. He stays up all night teaching it basic, inexperienced fighting moves with the shadow function. He even develops a sort of a friendship with the robot, who he discovered while cleaning the bot off that it's name is Atom.Charlie takes it to the Zoo, an underground, lower-class ring for unofficial fights with no rules in the remains of an abandoned animal park. Against Charlie's wishes, Max bets large against the ring-leader. Max, with the advice of Charlie, comes out with an underdog victory. Taking the money and the momentem, they schedule another fight. Charlie sees Max dancing, with the robot mimicking the dance with his shadow function. Max knows that he doesn't have the fight knowledge to teach it to fight well. Charlie says that the dancing can be their "flair", and that he'll agree to teach it to fight if Max is the showman and mechanic. Max takes the speech function from Noisy Boy and lets Charlie do his thing. With the bot's superior durability and speed, combined with it's shadow function mimicking Charlie's human-boxing, Atom becomes a rising star. Max uses his winnings to buy spare parts and repairs Atom, and Charlie slowly starts paying off old debts.It's not long before Max, Charlie, and Atom are recognized by professional promoters and invited to take part in the WRB, Worldwide Robot Boxing. They are pitted in a match against Twin Cities, an Asian robot with two heads and users. After being beaten into a corner, Charlie finds Twin Cities' weakness, and during the confusion between it's controllers, Atom lays the beat down. After a grueling, metal-on-metal slugfest, Atom finally is announced the victor. When entering the ring as the champion, Max grabs the microphone and publically challenges Zeus to a duel.Zeus is the leading champion, undefeated in robot boxing. In fact, it's remained on the top by annihilating each and every opponent. No opposing bot has even lasted two whole rounds with Zeus. This champion bot was constructed by the champion bot maker, the once retired creator who built the Generation I champion Noisy Boy. It was commissioned by a rich Russian Oligarch to be the best fighter out there, and using a new program that analyzes fighting patterns in other bots and overrides them, it's the best there is.It's not all good news for Max and Charlie. Charlie's old debt from the county fair catches up with him after the fight with Twin Cities. After a failed escape attempt, the goons catch Charlie and Max. They have no qualms about beating an eleven year old kid and stealing his money, but they take it a bit further when they beat Charlie "within an inch of his life". Charlie sees the danger in the lifestyle, and calls Max's aunt to take him to save him from the danger. After an emotional scene where Max reveals that all he ever wanted was for Charlie to fight for him, the aunt and uncle take custody. After a little thinking time, Charlie realizes what he should do for Max, getting the approval for the fight against Zeus.He shows up on the aunt's doorstep, and awkwardly apologizes to Max. Although she disagrees, she decides that Charlie can have Max for "one night". They go to the championship fight, underdog against undefeated world champion. Bets are running wild with the fight, with 5 to 1 odds against Atom even surviving one of five rounds against Zeus. When the fight starts, Atom is almost instantly KO'd by Zeus. Charlie abandons the automated commands and goes for individual moves, and manages to hang in a little longer with Zeus. Atom is getting beat hard by Zeus still, though, but reaches the end of round one. In round two, Atom makes a few surprise hits against Zeus, and knocks it's automatic sensors out of balance. Charlie gets in the grove with the bot and both Atom and Zeus are taking heavy hits. Atom has lasted longer than any bot before against Zeus, credited to not only his excellent durability built in as a sparring bot but his non-standard moves taught to him by a human fighter, Charlie.Near the end of round four, Atom gets trapped in a corner and his voice recognition software gets destroyed. With the advantage, Zeus gets ready to end it, and only misses striking the final blow because of the ending bell. Max convinces Charlie to fight with the shadow function, and even with the severe damage, the enhanced speed and improbability of shadowing a real human in real time gives Atom a new decided advantage. Charlie and Atom strike back, hard. Dealing blow after blow directly to Zeus, his creator gets frustrated, aborts the automatic program and manually controls the bot. With Charlie abusing the shadow function, however, it is all for naught.Charlie starts taking Zeus down for the championship, and is stopped by the bell, ending the fifth and final round. Against the popular vote of the crowd, the judges vote in favor of Zeus, so he retains the crown, but Charlie and Max's bot Atom gets the honorary title of "People's Champion".

Tags: psychedelic, feel-good

Review:
I wasn't expecting much when I saw this movie - and I'm not really a fan of movies where kid's are the lead - but, I was pleasantly surprised with this one.Even though this was a "formula / underdog" type of movie, it had me cheering for Atom, Hugh Jackman was great and so were the cast of characters.The CGI was excellent, I really connected to the characters, and it was just a fun, guilty-pleasure (c'mon, boxing robots - who DOESN'T want that !) type of movie.Not quite "A Space Odyssey:2000" but then again, it's not supposed to be.FUN.
At this most inopportune time, he is forced to take care of his estranged son (Dakota Goyo), whose burgeoning friendship with an outdated sparring 'bot named Atom convinces Charlie to give the big time one last shot.For a movie that has the skeleton to accommodate exploring the concept of human qualities in machines, a la Blade Runner or Artificial Intelligence, as well as (warning: pretentiousness ahead) the theme of 'ethics and morals of humanity', it actually does everything it can to avoid those topics entirely.
On a more negative note, the screenplay does allow for an assortment of cringe-worthy moments (which some might call 'heart-warming', depending on personal perspective) that include dancing robots and the introduction of more than one excessively cartoonish side character, again limiting the level of engagement one can make with this movie.The action set pieces in the film were visually pleasing, exploiting a decent amount of camera angles to give the viewer an intriguing look into the mechanics of robot rumbling.
Finally, it got an Oscar nomination for Best Visual Effects, and thus, I no longer had a choice.And I am here to tell you that you should not believe everything you've heard...my initial reaction was wrong, my second one was right: "Real Steel" is a big load of absolute junk.Set in 2020 or something, when boxing has been replaced by robots, Jackman plays Charlie, an ass ex-boxer who impregnated a girl and whose son comes back to haunt him fourteen years later when she passes away.
My response to Real Steel is almost parallel to Hugh Jackman's reaction to the robot fighter Atom in the film.
It looked like another film that glorified the "coolness" of robots, and then tried to tack on a contrived story of a father and son relationship.
The two meet awkwardly, but experienced moviegoers like myself know that these two will soon become a cheerful father and son duo.During a junkyard visit where Charlie and Max are searching for new parts for their robot, they stumble upon Atom, a small, yet relentlessly strong bot who is abandoned but still able to fight.
but what makes it a bit better is the fact that the cast approaches it with optimism and the mentality that they will "make it work." Jackman certainly does, pulling off a sleazy, ignorant father who grows to appreciate his son and his job a bit more, and Dakota Goyo, like I said before, hits almost every note just right.
At least Real Steel recognizes the movies it's paying homage to, like the whole end scene that slightly mirrors Rocky.Director Shawn Levy has successfully made success out of two underdogs; the film itself and Atom.
By the end, the film had given me a feelings I like to possess when I come out of a film I thought was going to be lackluster; reassured and surprised.Starring: Hugh Jackman and Dakota Goyo.
The good things about the movie were Hugh Jackman, some good action scenes, new movie concept about Robots boxing and not humans.Bad things were clichéd story and how everything seems to work well for the kid and his father throughout the movie.
I cried watching Kung Fu Panda-2 but not this movie.One thing i can say for sure is that a 10 year old kid would definitely love this movie and suckers for typical clichéd and corny Hollywood films.And if this movie managed to win an Oscar I would certainly be shocked..
By the time we have robots as advanced as these we won't be filling up trucks with fossil fuels (something I noticed happening more than once - sponsorship from big oil?)In its defence the kid actor was pretty good insofar as he could be with the sh1t script he's been given and the idea that kids would speak Japanese in the future due to the superiority of their online games was a nice touch (though I think Chinese is just as likely).All in all a huge disappointment.
Fighting robots, Hugh Jackman, Evangeline Lilly, sounded like a decent combination for this sci-fi geek, so I went into it as optimistic; I couldn't have been more disappointed.
It's like a movie of Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots, with all of the depth and complexity of the original game.That said, it's probably a good way to keep (young) kids entertained for an afternoon..
Family values, dad gone wrong and from that on you know how it goes.This is Rocky Balboa wrapped in I Robot, with a little bit of really cheesy dialogs.I even heard of people who cried with Real Steel, really?, I mean REALLY?!.
The direction of the fight story (from junk yard to title shot) is as obvious as the emotional journey (bad relationship to good one) and the writers seem to have struggled to raise their energy for such a predictable trudge, because the dialogue is corny as hell and clunks around the screen more than the robots do.
It doesn't help that Goyo is given dialogue that doesn't suit his character but also he spends most of the film being an ass, just like Jackman has to do; so after a while you realise that while you know where these characters are going, you don't actually like them very much for a big section of the movie.
The sports action is noisy but heartless and everything else about it is clunky and predictable; the effects look good and technically it is impressive but it just never gets going and it always feels like the producers decided that the concept and the effects would get people in the door, so as long as they deliver on the concept (robots hitting each other) then there is no real need to worry the details (details like character, dialogue, heart and general plotting).
perfect cast,perfect script,perfect direction,and perfect ending..it couldn't get any better than that..pairing of son-father relationship in this movie is just outstanding..and what a performance by Hugh Jackman and Dakota Goyo..that little kid might overshadow the sexiest man in the world..this can be the best film of the year till now..i would love to see Hugh Jackman more on the screen..he has made his mark but he should do more movies..if you haven't seen it yet,just don't waste your time in thinking..just GO FOR IT..it can worth watching many times..not a single moment in the movie was getting drown down..perfectly executed script..just one word for it" WOW "....
I really wasn't expecting much when I saw who was directing this and even the whole premise of a 'rock-em sock-em robots' movie starring Hugh Jackman had me thinking this was some kind of joke.
But this movie has given Jackman a whole new image...as the deadbeat dad and cocky ex-boxer who participates in gladiatorial robot fights for a living!I won't go too much into the nitty-gritty's of the plot...but all I'd like to say is that this movie is ultimately a story about the triumph of the average down-on-his-luck 'everyman' against overwhelming odds.
It's a story we've seen done a million times...but never against so creative and pulse-ponding a backdrop!And while Hugh Jackman does a great job...the real star of the show is undoubtedly his character's son (played by Dakoto Goyo)...the kid comes off as annoying at first but he eventually grows on you!It may not be Oscar material, but this sure is one great movie, and at the end of the day, that's all that matters!.
It's unfortunate that the writers had no idea how to write a child role and turned in a character that was right from the start doomed to be one of the most annoying things of the year.Dakota Goyo could probably give a half-decent performance under the right writer/director, but here he's saddled with a mess of a "too cool for school" kid that grates on the nerves almost immediately and only gets worse as it goes on (the scene where he grabs the microphone in the ring might honestly be the most annoying thing in film this year).
Hugh Jackman is terrific as always.Even the discarded dancing Robot ATOM is so adorable and you feel connected with the cast almost instantly.But the real find of the movie is the kiddo Dakota.Sometimes you wonder what is the age of that kid, given the expressions and emotions coming out of that cute face.
But those looking for robot fight after robot fight might be better off with watching the Transformers trilogy from start to end, since you only get a handful of robot battles, with the bulk being montaged away in the midsection and the final fight even, which leaves behind an aftertaste of being short changed on the entertainment front, since we're like the spectators on screen, ready to see some hard hitting action from the get go.Instead this film takes on a more human dimension, which is rather formulaic if you strip away the robot and machine component.
To compound the problem, he gets to hook up with his 11 year old son Max (Dakota Goyo) he never knew, and forms a testy relationship fueled by stubbornness from both parties, which you know will turn for the better with their discovery of Atom, a sparse sparring robot they found in a junkyard.It plays on the human themes of courage and never giving up when in pursuit of something, which of course gets translated via Atom in its many fights in the ring, designed to take plenty of hits, yet always having something extra within itself to stand up and continuing doing what it's meant to do.
Through the inanimate object both father and son start to bond - Max being the convenient kid tinkerer of parts fueled by his belief and idealism, and Charlie bringing experience in fighting to the table, both becoming partners as they take on whatever gigs that come their way, until an outburst by Max meant a shot at the world title against the incumbent champion Zeus, funded by what seemed to be Russian money and Japanese expertise, a plot development you'll see coming very expectedly.Hugh Jackman and Dakota Goyo share a wonderful chemistry together that worked wonders for the film, and especially Dakota for his ability to come off quite naturally without being in awe of his more illustrious co-star.
Which serves to explain that while machines can perform rote functions perfectly, humans will still always have the upperhand with creativity and innovativeness almost always worked into our solutions.But don't let that detract you from this entertaining crowd pleaser coming from director Shawn Levy who knows a thing or two about crafting broad based films that appeal, even if it does follow a repackaged formula - tell me if you don't see similarities with Sylvester Stallone's Over The Top about a father and son, and in the competitive arena of arm wrestling - exploiting the popularity of robots in film in recent years..
Then you have Real Steal and what a cracking kids film this turned out to be!It's the story of Max , an 11 year old boy who meets his stay away father , Charlie ( Hue Jackman) after his mother dies.
The trouble is , he is down on his luck , that is until he teams up with his son Max and a second generation robot called Adam.The best gauge of how good this film is is the reaction of my two boys and they absolutely loved this , and I'm not ashamed to say i really enjoyed it too.The special affects with the Robot's are fantastic and the fight scenes are second to none.
I actually prefer the robot action in this movie over that of the Transformers series because the confined location of a ring or cage makes the action significantly easier to digest.Real Steel comes from director Shawn Levy, whose entire niche is family friendly fare.
It's a fun CGI movie, with lots of cool fighting and cheering scenes.The companies' intention at selling toys is understandable, but it comes off somewhat disdainful, because you step into the theater expecting a movie (movies have stories), and you walk out feeling like you attended a Vegas' prizefighting night - be this good or ill..
The science-fiction robot ass-kicking element of the film is just a sheen under which the real subject shines through: the relationship between a father and his son.Real Steel is actually a sports movie.
It is a David vs Goliath story that had the packed theater cheering, clapping and reacting like I've seldom seen a movie audience react.The film is beautiful to look at, the fights are cool and the acting is of high caliber.
To top it off, the overriding story (father vs estranged son) is straight out of Rocky V.As a fan of both martial arts (including boxing) and giant robots, I felt there was no way I could be disappointed in this film.
So-So. Real Steel is a decent movie with some decent acting, but not a whole lot of new premises or outcomes.The main plot is Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) is a former boxer who now works in the robot boxing game, using bad bot after bad bot.
Two things about this movie I really liked; Number 1, the action of the boxing scenes, which were truly spectacular (coming from a die-hard Rocky fan) with the CGI and the robots just beating the snot out of each other.
Well, not really.Real Steel is about Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) owing people he can't pay who now wants to beat every inch of his life, and relies on big robots to fight tournaments for him.
One of the worst Hugh Jackman movie and one of the worst of the year.I am giving it only 3 stars that too only for the robot fights.
It's definitely clichéd, and a lot of time, you know what's coming, but Star Wars was clichéd too, and it was still a great movie.The violence is not as bad as the rating makes it seem because most of the violence is the robots.
Movie Review: "Real Steel" (2011)Executive Producer Steven Spielberg in early endeavors of at that times freshly-inked 30-picture-deal with Indian-based Hollywood-movie-investing Reliance Entertainment, part of Reliance Industries Limited, comes an original, short-story based screenplay by John Gatins, which in its conception fulfills the requirements of an young-teenager movie-ride elevated by starring working Hugh Jackman directed by Shawn Levy, who has been closing in as-rumor-has-it with leading cast members Bryan Cranston as Victor Sullivan and Tom Holland as Nathan Drake on another major video-game adaptation concerning a huge "Exclusive-Playstation" hit "Uncharted: Drake's Fortune" (2007).Even though "Real Steel" receives an unnecessary PG-13 rating ny the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), the near-future down-to-earth science-fiction movie keeps its editorial pace with two hours of metal-splintering action scenes of further advanced visual effects work by supervisors Erik Nash, John Rosengrant, Danny G.
Taylor, Swen Gillberg and associates, enriching a substituting, "Over The Top" (1987) reminiscence, father-son-relationship, who build robots for scenarios of "Bot Fights" as an mutual international business endeavor, with charming down-on-his-luck main character Charlie Kenton, here performed with conviction as picture-carrying Hugh Jackman, when supporting cast member tend to deny suspense-striking conflict material despite the usual born-to-be an underdog confronting the "Goliath" storyline of a short-lived but entertaining Hollywood motion picture entertainment featuring some emotional charged dialogue scene between Hugh Jackman and actress Evangeline Lilly as caring-as-supportive young-adult-girlfriend character Bailly Tallet, heating up human-condition-identification-beats by targeting mass-teenage-audiences."Real Steel", released in Fall 2011, alongside a heavy-daring year on original story material with an ultra-expensive "Cowboys & Aliens" (2011) starring Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford on top of an already-struggling DreamWorks Pictures LLC; nevertheless backed-up by Buena Vista affiliated as Disney Enterprises-owned Touchstone Pictures, when cinematography by Academy-Award-winning Mauro Fiore ("Avatar" 2009) who keeps shots, even with extensive artificial-as-bloodless digitally-rendered images, a lot of fun to watch for the moments worthwhile with cautionlessly and recklessly overpoluted product placement necessities of all-to-familiar nowadays merchandise articles, which has become that obvious that this unless professionally-executed minority-reporting event-movie loses half of its audience on the U.S. domestic market.© 2018 Felix Alexander Dausend
In "Real Steel" are excellent mixed sports drama, action, touching family story, special effects and kindness of old family movies, whose sometimes was filming Steven Spielberg long time ago.
Real Steel is a quirky movie, the trailers make it out to be a science fiction/action movie; the first half an hour of the movie runs like a redemption drama and then again it morphs into a family drama about a boy and his pet robot before ending in a boxing/fighting movie.
Every story has already been written, ie love, lust, fear, hate, loss, luck etc and if you have seen a few boxing movies then you already know the plot for this movie although there will be a few surprises in there.The robot graphix are awesome and very believable!Anyway I am off to go build my own Noisy Boy and you have to go watch Real Steel.
One thing that does still puzzle me is why boxing is something that always works so great and spectacular on film, while in real life it really isn't every anything half as exciting or spectacular to watch.Hugh Jackman really needed a movie like this again.
'REAL STEEL': Three and a Half Stars (Out of Five) In the same year that brought us one of the greatest inspirational fighting films of all time ('WARRIOR') we also get this: the robot variation on 'ROCKY'.
The movie is pretty cheesy kids fair but it is well made cheese and enjoyable if you like fight movies and robots.The film is based on the 1956 short story 'Steel' by Richard Matheson and tells the tale of a world (set in 2020) where robots have replaced humans in boxing.