Written by Ashley Penrod, Assistant Editor

So, picture that you have several movie-ingredients sitting on your countertop. Said ingredients are as follows:

• Rocky


• Transformers (first one – the not-crappy one)


• Ong Bak


• Million Dollar Baby


• Wolverine


• C-3PO

Along with random bits of freaking awesomeness (add to taste) – what might one expect to get after blending these bits and pieces? The answer can be found in the new Disney CGI romp, “Real Steel”. As I hadn’t even heard of the movie, my counterpart, Managing Editor Matt Sernaker, told me “Its Rock-em-Sock-em Robots: The Movie. You’ll like it.” While this answered all of none of my questions, I was bored and figured a movie sounded good. So, needless to say, my expectations were medium-to-low.

Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) is a has-been boxer traveling the country to promote his tin-cannish robot fighter. As is common in boxing movies, he owes a helluva lot of people a helluva lot of money, and is losing fight after fight and counting only on arrogance, which is just adding to his debt. But his financial predicament seems to be solved in the form of a tragic accident, which has killed his ex and baby’s mother, leaving his 11 year old son without guardians. His son, Max (Dakota Goyo, a newcomer last seen in “Thor”), is sought after by his wealthy Aunt (Hope Davis) and Uncle (James Rebhorn), who promise to provide Max with a better life than Charlie could hope to give him. As Charlie doesn’t have the time or patience for his son, he sets off to sign him away to his aunt, but circumstances allow Charlie a few months time with his son, as both the aunt and uncle will be vacationing in Italy – So, Charlie proceeds to sell his ‘babysitting’ services while the two are on holiday, and in return, he is promised a large sum of money (enough to pay his debts plus). 

Charlie and his son begin an awkward power-struggle as they attempt to forge a relationship on the road. Because Max is an avid follower of Robot Boxing, as well as a gamer (what kid isn’t nowadays?), he finds his father’s work fascinating, and knows that he can add to it with his own skill and knowledge of the mechanics of the sport. While looking for spare parts in a junkyard, Max accidentally stumbles upon a buried robot from several generations earlier of Robot Boxing (literally stumbles, making this scene a pertinent one in the relationship between Charlie and Max). Though Charlie is vehemently opposed to it, Max manages to dig the robot up on his own, and with the help of Charlie’s “friend” (insinuated to have been more), Bailey (Evangeline Lilly, of “Lost” fame), Max cleans up his robot and marvels at the robot’s programming, which still works and allows him to shadow the movements of his human counterpart. With a little soap and a lot of time, Atom is born, and Max and Charlie take him to underground Robot Boxing matches to test what he is really made of. Goofing off, Max discovers that shadowing is entirely more fun than it initially seemed, and he teaches his robot to dance (even throwing poppin-and-locking and krumping in the mix….Incredibly entertaining). When Charlie sees this, he insists that Max make it an entry-move, and the dancing kid-and-robot duo quickly become newcomers to watch on the League Scene.

The movie progresses in a predictable manner; Atom starts off slowly beating robots among the scum of the underground, and gradually works his way up to The Robot Boxing League, and moves into professional territory. The League is where the undefeated Zeus reigns supreme, and when Atom unexpectedly wins a League match (in the process, becoming the People’s Favorite Robot Boxer), Max gets caught up in the hype of the win, and challenges Zeus and his sterotypically-rich-and-powerful trainers to a one-on-one, anytime, anyplace.

I’m woman enough to admit when I’m wrong, and boy, was I way off about this movie. I could go on and on about how amazingly awesome it was, how the characters and plot-points were completely believable and caused thick empathy among the audience, and how gorgeous the effects were, but I won’t. Because its just something that you have to see for yourself. Yes, it is the ‘same old story’ (boxer who is out of commission takes one last shot, training an underdog to fight the mighty, undefeated power and money behind his opponent), but it is put together in a way that makes this movie sequenced perfectly, and executed with genuine emotion and action. The audience will easily relate to the boxing-robots in far more of a real way than we ever did to Optimus Prime in Transformers (and these robots don’t even talk).

ComicsOnline gives Real Steel 5 out of 5 chances to see the little guy succeed.

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