Real Steel: Review By Sreekiran

Human Boxing is out of mood now. In the near future where robots battle against each other in an arena (with human audience of course) remotely controlled by trainers. Real Steel gives us pure robotic fun, we might just think as Transformers did, but this has some deep human life to it, blemished with great depth in father son relationship despite robots playing the major role. It is directed by Shawn Lewy (famous for Night at the Museum), and written by John Gatins and co. The movie promises to be much better than those life less Autobots and Megatrons where they battle very epically to survive and rule. Michael Bay needs to know the fact that human elements are needed equally in the movie and this movie will help him for the next film, probably. Steel bodies rattle in cages and suffers some punches and metal breaks, hands fly in this science fiction flick, starred by Hugh Jackman and Evangeline Lilly supported by Dakota Goyo.

Bringing robots is not new for us. But this does promise some sense and reasons also. With a little slow and yet convincing narrative, we get to care for the characters. This is something different in science fiction movie, where human elements are subdued. Bringing a father and separated son after long years and slowly developing the bond between them is also a great thing to watch, amidst the robots rolling down the arena and kicking hard to dominate the show. The story telling was probably straight forward. The movie directly in the future, where robots are in the world and not dominating them of course, but managed by humans so that they can box, play bull fight, and also tackle some other hard steel bodies ahead of them.

Robot boxing is an interesting concept. There are some great robots called as Zeus, Atom. It is perfectly blended with a good story to tell. The robots have life here, and they are also having one clever conscience.

With the beginning of Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman), displaying his robot in front of a camera and asking five dollars for it, is quite funny and yet we care because he needs money. He puts the robot in the bull fight and we care about robot fighting the bull. Having a runtime of 128 minutes, Real Steel is 45 minutes of pure popcorn entertainment and 80 minutes of deep storytelling where the characters build, robots and human have some natural feelings, they get trained and also follow instructions by their master and understand them. The director had taken care to keep the viewers stay connected. When he thought that movie is having too much of human elements, he brings in a robot clash and makes the viewers again engaged. Overall it was pure 90 minutes of good stuff. The remaining 30 minutes can be negotiated and can be watched, because it was neither boring nor bad.

Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) was a famous boxer who appeared in newspaper, and his son Max (Dakota Goyo) now joins with money making father, and makes him realize about what he cares. It takes a long time though, but still their chemistry works really well. They fight in certain scenes, and also supportive in certain scenes. The director has taken care, not to infuse emotional quotient beyond the limits, because this is no family drama, but a science fiction movie. Mr. Jackman plays Charlie, who wants money for some reason and always gives to Bailey (Evangeline Lilly). The depth in his characterization was missing, right till the peak mark. Towards end, it got to a good depth. Mr. Goyo is awesome in his role. His character is one of the best in the movie. The emotional depth was handled really well. Evangeline Lilly had an equally important role where she realizes that Charlie needs his son and he needs to do it and asks him to go and get him. Other characters are just suffused who we do not care, whatever they do and wherever they go. Almost every character performed well, with ease and Mr. Jackman does do a good job towards the climax.

The CGI robots are all fantastic in their get ups and arena battles look quite real. Thanks to the great cinematography and camera work. Music by Danny Elfman is also quite having some cool music. "All of my Days" are a great song in the movie. The battle was not having any score, but sound mixing was all concentrated towards metal sound. There were some prolonged long shots of nature, but quite normal as they were not beyond extended.

My word: Real Steel has some hard hitting 45 minute popcorn fun, with some human-robotic soul and feelings, and does promise to be a science fiction movie with a life. It is not only for 12 yr olds but also for general audience. I give A-