Real Steel

Before I review this film, I must make a confession. When I was growing up, my absolute favourite cartoon was Transformers, so you can imagine my thrill when Transformers finally arrived on the big screen. Yes, Shia LeBeouf is SHITE and there is never any story to speak of and Michael Bay is a vile film director. But there is something about hearing Optimus Prime's voice and seeing the brave Bumblebee make yet another heroic recovery after being savagely beaten that just warms me to my soul and takes me back to being that 7 year old sitting avidly in front of the TV.

We all have films, TV programmes and music that makes us feel that way and they should always be treasured, no matter how 'bad' they are...

And anyway, the third one was better than the second... Honest...

So, we've established that I like a film about robots hitting each other, so when I first saw the trailer for Real Steel, I was incredibly excited...

The story is a classic father-son redemption tale; Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) is a former boxer who travels from town to town making a living providing robots for illegal boxing bouts. His past catches up with him in the form of his young son, Max (Dakota Goyo) who recently lost his mother. His aunt (Hope Davis) is keen to adopt him, but his uncle (James Rebhorn) wants to go on a three month holiday, so offers Kenton $100,000 to look after Max over the summer.

Kenton initially wanted to leave Max with close friend Bailey (Evangeline Lily); but after seeing Kenton take delivery of a former champion robot, Noisy Boy, Max coerces Kenton into letting him travel with him to a fight. Unfortunately, as Kenton doesn't understand how to control Noisy Boy, he is soon destroyed by a superior robot.

With his robot useless, Kenton breaks into a junkyard to scavenge parts to help him create a new robot; it is here that Max's life is saved by an old sparring robot called Atom. Max decides to take the robot out of the junkyard and rebuild him. After using parts from other robots, Max convinces Kenton to allow Atom to fight.

The story moves onto to the inevitable World Championship bout with the most feared robot, Zeus.

This is a lovely film that kept the many children in the screening quiet and quite frankly, rapt. Jackman is brilliant as Kenton, who in turn is a real human character in that he has flaws, is incredibly selfish, but sees a chance to 'do something right' by his son. Goyo is also very good as the sensible and stubborn Max. There were many times during this film where the roles of father and son were reversed, with Max looking to the future and Kenton going for the quick buck without thinking about the consequences of his actions.

The film is executive produced by Steven Spielberg and you can see his mark all over the film; from the long glances between father and son to the emotional appeal of Atom.

The robots are truly awesome and unlike Transformers where all the battles are done in quick succession so you can't really work out who is hitting who; Real Steel fight scenes are done slowly, so you know exactly what is going on. The fight scenes are stunningly choreographed and Jackman really does look and move like a real boxer which almost make the scenes authentic.

The film is a tad schmaltzy and I felt that, at times, the film didn't really know what it wanted to be. Was it just a father-son redemption story? Or is it a story about the battles of the underdog? Or maybe it is just a boxing film? It certainly had elements of all three, but never really followed through with any of them. In spite of this, the film has no pretences and doesn't try to be anything other than what it is. It is a film about robots hitting each other, but there is a charm about the film which I found quite endearing.

There was a trick missed with the film not really utilising Atom. Atom was clearly designed to appeal in the same way that Wall-E was, but this was barely used within the film until the last few scenes. That said, having a robot that has a shadow function is a brilliant idea and worked incredibly well in this film. I particularly enjoyed the dancing scenes.

Verdict: A genuinely lovely, feel good film with some stunning choreography. The ending was very well done and not quite what you expect, but enjoyable nonetheless. Good performances all round made for a very satisfying film. Michael Bay can learn a lot from this.

If you have to see one film this year about robots hitting each other, make it this one.