Real Steel

Real Steel the new big CG Boxing Robot movie with Hugh Jackman made it's launch this weekend.

I can say that I wasn't expecting it too be all that good. The early trailers weren't so hot. And it wasn't until the last month or so that we finally got some trailers that actually made the movie look like it was worth going to.

The movie worked well enough, they tried to have it setup as a father and son movie with the boxing mixed in there.

My biggest problem with the movie, and where the suspension of disbelief failed to take hold was in the world that the movie was set in.

It's supposed to be 2027 if I remember right, and we now have these 10 foot tall 1000 pound robots, that are able to balance, and walk, run and fight without falling down. They are controlled by remote control or voice command. Yet, the world around them seems to be still frozen in the world of today circa 2005.

If you take the robots away, and Jackmans futuristic truck away, then the movie could have walked right out of 1995 even. The world doesn't support the story it's trying to tell.

Especially when they are doing fights for cash, who even has cash these days.. Jackman has this iPhone 15 he uses, and yet they have no way to transfer e-cash or anything else. They still use cash. Even when they got their first League fight they still seem to get paid in a wad of cash (I could understand the underground fights still using cash, but official league fights??)

And these are robots, you would think that the operators would have designed some more moves for them. They aren't restricted to anatomical human movements. And we are never really informed about the rules of the fights. Shouldn't the bigger 'bots be more heavily armored and ridiculously stronger?? And in such, there would be no way a smaller weaker bot is going to beat a bigger 'bot.

Reminds me a Star Trek paradox with their ships. The bigger the ship, the bigger the energy supply. The bigger the energy supply, the stronger the shields and weapons. There is no advantage really to have anything other than the biggest ships.

But Real Steel never bothers to explain any rules of the game to us, he just throws his bots into fights. Which in itself, seems a little ridiculous. We are led to believe he's been around the block a few times. And yet he seems to be repeating the same stupid mistakes time and time again. Which would lead us to believe he was a moron, so I don't know what you'd have to call it. But when the boy is on control he knows what he's doing. Now, I realize that it can be easier to be level when looking at something else. But, he wasn't new at this. It seems to be implied he's been doing this for years. He should have learned by now, especially with Bailey reminding him and learned. Or gone broke been killed long before now.

So, as always it's in the details. And these little details caused me to never quite achieve the level of suspension to fully enjoy the movie. It was a decent movie, but something I could have waited for DVD for. And hopefully we never see a sequel.

If you want to see good movie about a sport, underground fights and the trying to get into the league. Go and rent 'The Blood of Heroes' was a fantastic movie back in the 80s.

2.5 stars out of 5