Real Steel movie overview

Real Steel was shepherded into production by Steven Spielberg and it’s obvious why the script, loosely based on a short story by Richard Matheson, must have appealed to him. Flawed parent-child relationships set against fantastical backdrops are his thing: think Jurassic Park, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, War Of The Worlds, Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade.But unfortunately Real Steel isn’t a Spielberg movie. Instead, it’s directed by Shawn Levy, the personality-free director who imbued the Night At The Museum films and Date Night with his own unique brand of absolutely nothing.
Possibly as a result, the father-son relationship — the film’s key dynamic — is bungled. While Jackman plays a charismatic chancer as well as you’d expect, Max is an annoying little twerp. Not only is the 11-year-old a mechanical whizz, he’s a brilliant dancer, a shrewd businessman and he gives audacious, crowd-pleasing speeches seemingly off the cuff. Audience sympathy levels for this kid will be below zero – but even more damagingly, Max’s all-round brilliance means his character needn’t, and doesn’t, develop. It’s a lot harder to care when dad’s making all the effort.

The Max character may be badly-built, but the androids aren’t much better. Relationships ’twixt boys and ’bots are richly explored in children’s films such as The Iron Giant and Castle In The Sky, but here it’s barely touched upon. The potential expressiveness of Atom’s unblinking blue LED eyes – the one element of sharp design in the entire movie – is squandered, and a late sequence of “soulful” close-ups of his face is unintentionally absurd.
The other robots are so rote, they might as well have wandered on set from an Xbox game. One of them has a second head - that’s the low level of imagination we’re talking about here - and Zeus, the reigning world champion robot boxer, owes so much to the Transformers franchise that he looks as if he might fold himself up into a superbike at any second. (Zeus is coldly efficient, technologically superior and a serious threat to Charlie’s endearing, all-American incompetence - so naturally, he’s the work of a Japanese designer and is owned by a Russian.
With a lot more focus and a smart re-write, Real Steel could have been a neat companion piece to J J Abrams’s recent Spielberg-aping sci-fi adventure Super 8. Instead, like Atom itself, the lights may be on but there’s no evidence of a soul behind the flicker.