So I finally got the chance to sit down the other day and watch Real Steel with Hugh Jackman, who you may or may not know, played Wolverine in the X-Men.

Now I for one loved him as Wolverine.  But then again I am a tad biased as Wolverine is my favorite X-Man character.  And I challenge you to find anyone who has a differing opinion.  You’ll succed, no doubt, but it’ll take you a while…

When Real Steel first came out in theatre, I was …meh to see it.  It looked good, it had Hugh Jackman, I just wasn’t motivated enough to go out and see it.  Kinda wish I had.  It’s actually quite good.

So the story is Hugh Jackman plays a drifter kind of character in the year 2020.  Now at this stage of the game, robots have apparently taken over the sport of boxing in its entirety, eliminating the need for humans to beat on each other.  Charlie Kenton, our man of the hour, was a boxer in his younger days.  But seeing has how people want to watch robots wailing on each other, he had to grow with the times.

Kind of.

As I said, he’s a bit of a drifter.  Driving around in a trailer outfitted as a mobile home/workshop with his fighting robot to state fairs and back alley fights, Charlie Kenton owes a lot of people a lot of money that he’ll never be able to pay at the rate he’s going.

Enter monetary savior.

We find out early in the movie that Charlie has a son, because the mum died and now Charlie is called into a custody hearing.  Apparently mum’s sister is married to a very rich man, and is fighting for custody.  Hubby however, wants to go away for the summer so he pays Charlie 50 grand to take the kid while him and wifey go off together.

Charlie of course accepts the money, and he and his son Max are set to spend a fun filled summer together.

Now here is the most interesting part of the story for me.  See, normally in situations like this, mummy/daddy is trying to make nice with the kid, kid wants acceptance so plays along, then is all shocked and hurt to find out they’ve been sold after they bonded with the intended parent.  Not so here.

Right off the bat the two are antagonistic to each other, and Max finds out that Charlie sold him and is pretty much okay with it until the end of the movie.  I like that.  Ok doesn’t make for good family dynamics, but it is a refreshing change of pace.

So now Charlie is all set to leave Max with a friend for the summer, but when playing around with Charlie’s new fighting robot, low and behold Max has a gift with them, and a passion to boot.  Instead of leaving Max behind, Charlie takes him on the Great American Road Trip across the country with his pretty new robot.

Who doesn’t stay pretty or new very long.  Poor thing gets busted up their first fight so now they need a new one.

Long story short, they find an old generation robot who has sensory input technology.  Translation: he mimics your moves.

The rest of the movie is training the robot who Max calls Atom, fixing him up, winning all these underground underdog fights, until finally they make it to the big leagues where Max winds up peeing in the wrong pool.  Enter antagonist.  Now they have to fight to keep Atom with them, and in one piece.

It has the emotional parent/child meltdown near the end, and of course the triumphant successful ending where the little guy holds it over the big dog.  Don’t want to give too much of that away, else no one will want to watch it.

All in all quite enjoyable.  It was fun, fast paced, and funny, especially when the kid start break dancing with the robot to Eminem songs.  At least I think it was Eminem.  His was the only voice I recognized in those songs anyways…

If you’re a fan of fun movie, Hugh Jackman movies, fighting robots movies (if you can deal with them not having lasers), then it’s worth picking up Real Steel.

Enjoy.

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