Movielogr

Rating: 7 stars

All movies seen on 10/08/2011

View on: IMDb | TMDb

Real Steel (2011)

Directed by Shawn Levy

Science Fiction

Most recently watched by BTSjunkie, Javitron, seanCduregger, noahphex, jenerator, sleestakk, schofizzy

Overview

Charlie Kenton is a washed-up fighter who retired from the ring when robots took over the sport. After his robot is trashed, he reluctantly teams up with his estranged son to rebuild and train an unlikely contender.

Rated PG-13 | Length 127 minutes

Actors

Hugh Jackman | Dakota Goyo | Evangeline Lilly | Kevin Durand | Anthony Mackie | Hope Davis | James Rebhorn | Karl Yune | Sophie Levy | Tess Levy | Olga Fonda | John Gatins | Gregory Sims | Torey Adkins | Phil LaMarr | John Hawkinson | David Alan Basche | Julian Gant | Ken Alter | Leilani Barrett | D.B. Dickerson | Peter Carey | Dan Lemieux | Richard Goteri | Tim Holmes | Ricky Wayne | Taris Tyler | Kevin Dorman | John Manfredi | Mike Ancrile | Leah Barkoff | Joshua Ray Bell | Clark Birchmeier | Ben Bray | Wayne E. Brown | Justin Calkins | Ron Causey | Jahnel Curfman | Johnny Flynn | Logan Fry | Megan Grant | J.J. Green | Shane Hagedorn | Kef Lee | Brad Leo Lyon | Mary Magyari | Megan Mockensturm | Kirstie Munoz | Anton Narinskiy | Chris Newman | Wendy Paquette | Alan D. Purwin | Miguel Sandoval | Dwight Sora | Jojuan Westmoreland | Amanda Wright | Gary T. Jones | Rima Fakih

Viewing History (seen 1 time)

Viewing Notes

My kids wanted to see this, but I almost bailed on the rest of the family to catch a concurrent showing of Drive, sticking my wife with the kids. Instead, my wife and I decided we’d catch a later showing of Drive for a mini-date night and take one for the family.

I have to admit I was rolling my eyes at the typical “down-on-his luck, heart of gold, estranged father who just wants one more chance to do right by his kid even if he doesn’t know it” routine, and with good reason. It’s a tired, boring cliche. I was really ready to write off the whole movie in the first 15 minutes.

Fortunately for everyone involved, it got better after that. For one, Hugh Jackman actually does a pretty good job of playing the irredeemable asshole father. He doesn’t make very many apologies and when he does, it’s not some eloquent, out-of-character speech like we typically get. Jackman’s character’s lines are actually pretty suited to the character more or less throughout, which is kind of refreshing.

Second, I fell for the goddamn punch drunk robot. I’m a cynic when it comes to underdog stories, and I wanted to hate the metal bastard. Instead, I found myself inexorably drawn into rooting for the little guy. It’s difficult to instill humanity in a robot, but Real Steel manages to pull it off, with no real emotiveness on the part of the robot.

I can say unhesitatingly that I enjoyed Real Steel more than both Thor and Green Lantern combined.

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