Real Steel. A movie that isn’t just a 3D rerelease of a past Oscar-winner, but is instead unique, heartfelt and has enough robot decapitating to make anyone happy.
The premise of the movie is simple but effective: A robot-boxing dirtbag (Hugh Jackman) reaches the rock bottom of his career, and then gets forced to take care of his biological son (Dakota Goyo) when his ex-girlfriend dies. So the two of them work as a team towards defeating robots for financial survival. As simple as it is, the plot makes you feel a lot of emotions, and is surprisingly heartfelt. When the underdog robot, Atom, is climbing the ladder of success, you just want to root him on. When father and son get beaten up (minor spoiler) by the bad guy of the movie, you feel sad enough to almost stop watching. When the dad acts like a jackass to his boy, you want to smack him upside the head. Every event in this movie does an amazing job at making you feel connected. That is largely due to the great acting by both of the lead actors. Wolverine- I mean Hugh Jackman does a great job as the horrible father who undergoes emotional maturity as the movie progresses, and Dakota Goyo does a superb job as the tough-kid wannabe that he portrays.
The key to a successful movie centered around robot carnage are the visuals and soundtrack, no matter how good the acting is (Transformers, anyone?). Real Steel delivers in both categories, having an impressive rock ‘n roll soundtrack with lots of widely popular songs being in the movie, and visuals that look so realistic you almost forget that they’re CGI.
Overall, I loved Real Steel. I don’t know how on earth it got such low ratings from all of the critics, because it is an amazing movie. The acting is some of the best I’ve seen in a long time, the story and visuals are amazing, and the experience as a whole is remarkable. I definitely recommend you go out and buy this on DVD.
Robert's Interstellar Soapbox 