Real Steel
So, in a few words; Real Steel is a pretty good film that is a few screws loose from being a great film. See, I said 'few screws' - it's a pun right? Ha ha ha.
Anyway, so Real Steel is a film about robots fighting robots, which is pretty much a tried and tested form of entertainment for most children when you think about it; Transformers, Gundam, Power Rangers, you get the idea. Throw in some state of the art motion capture technology and some blockbusting actors and you're set, right? Well, yeah, actually; the film does what it sets out to do, and that must surely be to entertain. There's nothing overly complicated or original, you have the father-son bonding, a underdog fighting his way to the top, realising your true potential, yada yada, but somehow the film seems fresh aid ropes you in to rooting for the little guy, or in this case, the little robot; Atom. The special effects are amazing, and although this is rarely a real selling point for a good movie, it allows the fight scenes to seem more realistic, which is hard to say for a show that is essentially two action figures going at it. Hugh Jackman is his regular buff self, the kid (Dakota Goyo) isn't annoying, and the support cast are pretty neat too. (Pretty neat? I don't know, it's been a long day) You will find that familiar tingle in your spine from Rocky and most other well-done fighting films at the climactic showdown at the end, and the general storyline is satisfying without straying into corny. There are just a few things that I had issue with.
Firstly, the robot that is, I guess, the main robot character (Atom) isn't really developed too much. In this film, the robots are essentially just clever machines that are still controlled by a human, but quite early on in the film (so this isn't really a spoiler) it seems that Atom has some sort of understanding of himself, conceptualised by a moment where it looks into a mirror to see the metallic form of its...face I guess? Because of this, I was expecting some sort of revelation where this robot proves that he is actually an intelligent piece of equipment, rather than just a drone following orders, but it never came. So it just feels as if maybe they missed some parts out. There will be one moment where you'll be wishing for the Atom to take a mind of its own and save the day, but it doesn't come, leaving me to wonder why they added this bit of personification in in the first place.
The other point that I feel was missing was that there wasn't really a bad guy in the film - so while you'll definitely be rooting for Atom in the climax, they could have intensified this by, I don't know, having the opposing robot break Hugh Jackman's arm or sleep with his girlfriend. Yes? Maybe not. Finally, in this world where there are these state of the art robots fighting battles against each other, you can't help but think that there should be some pretty hefty technological developments everywhere else - but you don't see much of that. Are fighting robots the only robots that exist?
But, all in all, worth a view, even if only once. Oh, and also...
and
Lovvvely
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