Hugh Jackman put away his claws and the latex for 'Real Steel', the movie which revolves around boxing…with robots. This movie has a real 'rocky' feeling to it, tinged with a little father-son element in quite a new perspective. Father Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) was a low-profile boxer about to hit it big after repeated failures when the whole world stops caring about human boxing and moves on to robot boxing. Apparently, it's more intense and involves much more money; you know how the mob works. So the 'in-thing' evolves to robot boxing and Charlie takes a bite out of the cake and starts fighting with his own robots, making small money and barely living. Estranged son Max (Dakota Goyo) comes into the picture and the father-son part of the movie kicks in, with Charlie initially reluctantly partnering up with son. They come across a junkyard robot (literally) and put it together, have some fun, spend some quality time and kick metal butt.
That is basically the gist of the movie. Like the streets of London with traffic, Real Steal is packed up to the brim full of clichés, so much so that it overflows a little. Yet, this movie seems to pull itself up and cross the finish line to make the cut. Why? The characters are well played, Hugh Jackman dishes out acting which, in this writer's opinion, could be said to be more than decent. The boxing scenes are pretty damn epic as one can imagine; if you are having trouble imagining, then think about Megatron versus Optimus Prime scaled down to 8 feet, without the guns and ability to talk, but being controlled by humans and just kicking the inanimate bolts(and nuts) out of each other. CGI plays a good role and the soundtrack gets the viewer pumped, if at least a little. The most surprising thing about the movie is that it comes from the director who brought us Night at the Museum. This makes the movie quite great.
All in all, no matter how clichéd, the film proves enjoyable and entertaining. If you're looking for a fun one and a half hours get Real Steel.
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