Real Steel

Possibly as a direct result of the success of the 'Transformers' trilogy we get another movie about fighting robots. With Steven Spielberg being involved in that series and this film it might be a trend he's starting.

Sporting movies is a hard genre. There does not seem to be many ways of telling that type of story so they all seem pretty much the same. They follow pretty much the exact same plot points and no one has yet been able to successfully make it different. That's why I was not all that enthusiastic about going to see this film.

I was pleasantly surprised though that while it is a sporting film that is not the main point. It is primarily about a man and his relationship with his son. While that in itself is nothing new it is still done in a good way. The film has so many cliches that you know exactly where the story is going. But is has a certain charm about it that you don't seem to mind. I found myself enjoying the film a lot more than I expected. It does run a little bit long and there were some points I thought unnecessary. But over all I got swept up in the emotion of the story. I was also worried about the robots themselves. It's hard to get emotionally involved with creatures that have no emotions themselves. But they manage to do this with Atom. He has personality despite not doing very much.

The best bit of casting for this film is Hugh Jackman. As mentioned above the film is very much a stock standard film about a father/son relationship with a sporting undercurrent. However the charm of Hugh really makes the film a lot more enjoyable. I think he is one of the best performers working today. I've had the chance to see him live on stage and he is phenomenal. His film career, while good, has not lived up to the greatness of his stage presence. He has generally played it safe with big blockbuster type films that don't always stretch his skills. I think he needs to do a smaller independent type film to show what he can really do. Evangeline Lilly does a nice job but I think her role could have been a bit bigger and it would have been nice to see her more involved in the action. The real star of this film though is Dakota Goyo. I spoke of Hugh's charm making the film bearable but this kid makes it watchable. The kid is amazing in this film and makes it well worth seeing. Hopefully he has some sensible parents to manage his career properly.

It does not break any new ground as far as the sporting movie genre goes. But the core of the film is a nice father/son story that is made enjoyable by the charm of the two leads.