Set in the not-so-distant future of 2020, Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum, Date Night) directs Real Steel, where Charles Kenton (Hugh Jackman, Wolverine), a former boxer-turned-robot-boxer who is looking for a comeback, is suddenly given custody of his young son for the summer. Visually, the graphics couldn’t be better as they blend practical models with CGI, apparently an inspiration from producer, Steven Spielberg. The result is a film filled with really cool robot boxing, but the story lacks imagination.
The robots themselves are very detailed, being designed by the same team behind Iron Man, and it shows. Each robot has it’s own personality (sort of). What I found to be troubling what virtually no credit is given to the robot operator. It’s as though the robots themselves possess all the talent, but they still have to be operated by someone who knows their strengths, weakness and the combination codes. Charlie picks up the remote and just expects the robot to win. He hasn’t practiced at all!
SPOILER The kid, Max (Dakota Goyo, Thor), spends all kinds of time learning about the robot’s shadow function, but it doesn’t occur to them to use it for fighting until the end?? SPOILER
Something that I really didn’t like was that Max thinks that the robot actually understands him. It was almost as if the robot was going to become aware of itself. The film even hints at this throughout, but it never goes anywhere. Of course this would have taken the film in an entirely different direction, but I am annoyed at it’s inclusion.
There are several very small elements that rubbed me the wrong way. Why in the world would you let a kid loose with a 1,000 lb robot with no training? Video games do not prepare you that much. The kid knows all about the Japanese robot, but yet has no knowledge of the history of the sport? This just doesn’t match up. Why is Charlie saying no to a free robot they find? He doesn’t have any money anyway! Also, it’s raining. You know it’s raining. Bring an umbrella.
My other main issue with the story mainly derives from it’s lack of emotion. There seems nothing really drawing the father and son together. Nothing is really mentioned of the boy’s mother. Watching the deleted scenes, there was an abandoned storyline about butterfly pins that was eliminated. While this would not have changed the ridiculousness of the premise, it certainly would have given the film more of an emotional backbone.
The Real Steel Second Screen is a semi-new feature that has been popping up in more and more bonus Blu-ray features. For this film, the second screen is a tour of scenes with director, Shawn Levy, as well as a lot of other extras such as photos and production notes. You can view it in different ways: on top of the screen as you are watching the movie on your TV, or a sync option allows you to view on your iPad or computer as you watch the film. If you have a internet enabled Blu-ray player, you can sync with BD Live, but you can also try to sync it by having it try to pick up on the audio. I couldn’t get this feature to work, but was able to manually sync it. Through the second screen, you’re able to login to Facebook or Twitter. This is not really useful and is just another ploy for them to advertise the movie using the end-user. I would much more prefer a trivia track that just have fun stuff listed like subtitles.
Included in the bonus features is a mock behind-the-scenes giving more character detail about Charlie Kenton in “Countdown to the Fight: The Charlie Kenton Story.” It’s amusing and clearly was made as a promo for the film, but it’s way too long and should have been broken up into shorter segments.
My favorite bonus feature is “The Making of Metal Valley.” It’s a behind-the-scenes look at one of the set pieces for a major action scene in the film. I always love seeing how many people go into the production and thisone is on a grand scale. You get to see how they created the mountain, the stunt doubles, some funny outtakes and it even gets into the editing process. It’s told mostly from the point of view of director Shawn Levy, but there are other perspectives as well.
My second favorite bonus feature is “Building the Bots.” They built real robots. I was not expecting that. I honestly thought the whole thing was probably computer generated. It was incredible to see the amount of work put into each robot and how they were operated.
All newer movies are shot in high definition, so Blu-ray is truly the best viewing experience. The story itself it not enough to buy it, but if you’re into the robots, you’ll enjoy all the bonus features and be able to enjoy the action scenes for years to come.
Rating: Not spectacular by any means, but enjoyable enough if you like robots. 4/10
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