Hunky Hugh Jackman stars as Charlie Kenton a former boxer and now a robot fighter, well, in that he controls a robot which is fighting another robot, often in a competition to the explosive end. Dakota Goyo plays his estranged son, Max, who through an unfortunate chain of events comes to stay with Charlie for the summer. Rounding out the human side of the main characters is Evangeline Lilly as Bailey Tallet, the buddy slash love interest of Charlie.
What goes without saying (but will be said anyway)? The visual effects are stunning - there are lots of CGI scenes, but the filmmakers actually made full-sized puppet/models of all the robots in the movie (19 in all) which does lend to the realism if for nothing else than providing the actors with something to act against. Like Super 8, also by Dreamworks, this movie has a couple of bad words, uttered by the kid, that take this movie into the realm of PG-13, helped perhaps by some rather brutal robot-on-robot violence, but ultimately this film is very family friendly. The story follows a predictable arc, but does it well. While not groundbreaking, this film is solid and would earn a grade of B if I were to judge it on this alone.
What really is worth noting about this movie, is what doesn't happen. And I hope to god it's left out for the sake of a quality story and not because they were hooking for a sequel - a sequel would be great, just as long as it doesn't overturn the original. So, what's missing? Charlie grows as a character, but he doesn't leave character - he does not become the world's best dad, or even get custody of Max. Related to this, while Max's uncle is shown as a bit of a self-serving prat, his aunt, initially at odds with Charlie, has Max's best interest at heart the whole time, and is not vilified and ends up with custody of Max. Bailey obviously loves Charlie, but she is not the pushover who talks tough but always gives in, instead she is firm with Charlie when she needs to be, even when that means that he moves out of the gym she owns and goes on the road with no plans to come back. Fourth, there is a baddie, a rival of Charlie's from back in his boxing days, who in the climactic scene between the two, not only beats Charlie into unconsciousness (admittedly with the help of two thugs who use pipes), but he also steals not only Charlie's money but Max's money - and they never get it back. Max's robot, Atom is special, we get that, but in the end he's still just a robot. What a nice change from the hinted at possibility that he might have some form of sentience. Finally, in the final battle against the Zeus robot, Atom doesn't win. It does better than any other opponent, and the filmmakers leave us with the sense that given just another few seconds, it might have won, but he didn't - not by a 'knockout' or by score from the judges.
It's very satisfying to see an American movie that doesn't follow the usual American formula. I think while the biggest part of the credit should go to the director and writer, no insignificant part is that this film was made by Dreamworks, as opposed to Disney which I feel would have gone for the same-old, same-old because the emotional content is guaranteed. It is all of these factors that lead me to rate this movie. Well, to be completely honest I am only rating it because in a moment of over-zealous clap-trap above, I said it would have a "B" without the additional factors being included and then of course included them. That final rating would be an A-.
Check out Real Steel at IMDB
No comments:
Post a Comment