When I was in college, I had the privilege of spending a few weeks training to be a boxer. The guy I trained with was an amateur, but trained with pros in Chicago. He taught me how to move, how to defend, and how to punch. I’m not saying I could go toe to toe with anyone, but I had a ton of fun doing it. Consequently, I have a soft spot for boxing movies.
When I saw the previews for Real Steel a few months ago, I laughed. It screamed “poorly made kids movie designed to push toys”. Let me be the first to say I was wrong. I was very wrong, Real Steel is awesome.
Set in 2027, human boxers have been replaced by 8-foot tall, 2000 pound machines. The story follows Charlie Kenton, played by Hugh Jackman, as a former human boxer making his way in the robot fighting leagues. Charlie is a bit down on his luck; he wins some, he loses some, but is always on the edge of disaster. Well, sure enough disaster strikes and Charlie is left without a robot boxer. It’s at this time that he finds out that an ex-girlfriend with whom he fathered a child, Max, has died. He goes to the court hearing to find that Max is being cared for by a wealthy aunt and uncle. The aunt loves Max, but the uncle is not quite so enthused. In exchange for taking Max for the summer so the aunt and uncle can go on vacation in Italy, the uncle pays Charlie $50,000, enough for him to buy a new, formerly top-ranked fighting robot. Max insists on going with Charlie, and watches as Charlie badly fumbles a fight, leading to the destruction of his new bot. Desperate to put together one more bot, Charlie and Max go to a junkyard to salvage whatever they can to put a bot together. Charlie and Max stumble upon an old sparring robot named Atom. Max insists on a fight, which Charlie gets him. From there, the rest of the movie follows Atom’s rise through the robot fighting ranks until he gets a title bout with the defending world champion, Zeus.
Jackman does an admirable job conveying that Charlie is a man made by his circumstances; he’s not a bad person, but he becomes one because of the battles he has to fight. Max, played by Dakota Goyo, is Charlie’s redemption; a chance to atone for past sins and make him a better man. Evangeline Lilly rounds out the main cast as Jackman’s former love interest and the daughter of his former boxing trainer.
Real Steel isn’t just about giant robots beating the hell out of eachother. It’s the story of an underdog who no one gave a shot, rising to the top of the ranks through sheer power of will and the ability to take a punch and keep on coming.
My mom is a big Hugh Jackman fan, so when I got my preview passes, she was one of my first calls. All throughout the movie, I could see her dodging and moving in her seat, sparring with the screen. Any movie that can get my mother shadow boxing in the theater is worth seeing.
Real Steel comes out in early October. When it does, I highly recommend going to see it. It’s got heart, and a lot of it, and for a movie that revolves mainly around fighting robots, it’s something to see.
