Rock'em, Sock'em robots gets a 21st Century finish...

It's always easy to tell when you've hit a low patch in life. You may, for example, find yourself stark naked at three in the afternoon, eating an out of date can of baked beans over a bin. Or you could wake up one morning to discover that, in order to make some quick cash, you've allowed a company to tattoo a cartoon meercat across both your cheeks, forever branding you with a slightly xenophobic and infinitely irritating mascot. Of course, the very worst way to discover that you're life's not quite going as planned is to spend your days travelling from carnival to carnival, making a giant robot punch seven bells out of a live bull, before selling your own son to his wealthy uncle.

So begins Real Steel, the latest film by Shawn Levy which takes Richard Matheson’s short story, yanks out the apocalypse and heaves in a heavy dose of Americana.

It follows Charlie Kenton (played by the ever-entertaining Hugh Jackman), a once-great boxer now reduced to touring the Midwest and clobbering beasts with his giant robot in order to make a quick buck. After losing his robot (and therefore his source of income), he sells the custody rights to his son (Dakota Goyo, who proves that there are at least a few child actors who can appear on screen without making me want to tear out my own eyes) for a fabulous sum of money, on the condition that he keeps him over summer. The two then begin to bond as only father and son can: in the shadow of two enormous robots punching each other’s heads off. Emotions blossom, inner strengths are discovered and prod-DR PEPPER-ucts are placed for the next hundred and twenty minutes of utter nonsense, unashamed clichés and – most surprisingly – simple, honest fun.

To say that I was sceptical on hearing of this movie would be an understatement; I was convinced that the first trailer was a joke. After all, who in their right mind would make a film whose entire premise could be described as 'Rocky’em Sock'em Robots'¹?

More to the point, how could it possibly be good?

I suspect that Levy had the same thought, choosing to take the only sensible option available and embrace the nonsense like a father who has learned to love again. The first combat set piece features a nod to Rock’em Sock’em Robots with all the subtlety of a lunatic with a megaphone, but in doing so it sets the tone for the rest of the film: This is silly. We know. Let’s see where it goes, eh?

From that point on, the clichés come thick and fast. Heart-warming moments tumble from the screen and the plucky youth is plucky and youthful, but at no point do things become saccharine. The world of Real Steel – from the backwater carnivals of Midwestern states to the glamour of high-level spectator sports – is presented as one so quintessentially American that it would feel hollow without the heavy dose of schmaltz.

However, if all you’re interested in is mechanical pugilism, don’t let this put you off. Real Steel never falls into the unforgivable trap that ruined Michael Bay’s Transformers films: this is one film about fighting robots where the robots actually fight.

As for the scenes themselves, each uses the same motion capture technology as used in Avatar, as well as having the expertise of Sugar Ray Leonard on hand to act as an advisor. The fights are hectic, but never busy. Where Transformers had shots of indistinct blurs clanging against one another, Real Steel’s fights are brutal, fast-paced and, crucially, easy to follow.

The robots are all immediately recognisable; even watching on the IMAX’s brain-buggeringly huge screen I never lost track of what was going on. A clever mix of CGI and animatronics gives life to the robots, as they lumber around, get punched in the brain and generally act as a catalyst for a burgeoning father and son relationship.

The world itself is full of wonderful little touches that give the story a real feeling of ‘place’. Whether it’s the giant concrete ‘punching bags’ that hang from the walls of the robot-boxing gym (owned by childhood friend and telegraphed love interest Bailey Tallet, played by Evangeline Lilly) or the specially modified trucks that simply scream ‘near future robot transport’, Levy has done a fine job of making the preposterous world of robot boxing (imagine for one moment what war must be like in a society where even the boxers are two-tonne murder machines) into something vaguely plausible.

Despite the well-realised world, there is the occasional plot strand which refuses to go anywhere. Hints towards the possible sentience of a robot are soon forgotten, meaning that what could have been an interesting look at what it means to be human is reduced to an inexplicable handful of lingering shots of an impassive metal face set to a slightly mawkish soundtrack. There is also the aforem-DR PEPPER-tioned prod-DRINK BUDWEISER BEER IT’S NOT HORRIBLE WE PROMISE-uct placement, a phenomenon that is annoying in most films but borders on unforgivably obnoxious in Real Steel. There was one scene which had seven empty cans of Dr Pepper on a bench, all artfully turned so that the labels were facing camera. It got to the point where I was genuinely surprised that the ‘Clean refreshing taste’ didn’t in some way contribute to saving the day.

It does, however, feel a little churlish to criticise a robots-built-for-punching movie on the grounds that it lacks substance. Real Steel knows exactly what it is and exactly what it aims to offer. If you want to spend a couple of hours watching an enjoyable – if thoroughly predictable – piece of fluff, Real Steel is a very safe bet.

¹ I refuse to apologise for that. It was either 'Rocky’em Sock'em Robots' or describing the story as a ‘Bildungsrobot’. There are no winners in this game.

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