REAL STEEL: Ready to Fight

I like Shawn Levy. Yeah, the “kid guy”. The guy who’s famous for doing movies like Big Fat Liar, Cheaper by the Dozen, The Pink Panther and both Night at the Museum films. All of which I thoroughly enjoy. Of course, most people tend to forget the movies he made for adults – namely Just Married and Date Night. Levy had said in interviews that he was looking to break out of the “family comedy” stereotype that he had been stuck in, although not holding any reservations about returning to it someday. This is when Steven Spielberg started calling. Spielberg, who had agreed to move with DreamWorks to Walt Disney Pictures, was given the option to keep certain scripts with him even if it meant having to buy them out of his own pocket. One of these scripts was Real Steel.


Real Steel is based on a short story written by famed writer Richard Matheson. Matheson is famous for writing novels and short stories that inspired films like The Incredible Shrinking Man, The Box, (the screenplay for) The Night Stalker, Somewhere in Time, The Young Warriors and I Am Legend. He also wrote for television – Star Trek’s “The Enemy Within” and The Twilight Zone’s “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” (the famous William Shatner episode that was remade with John Lithgow in George Miller’s segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie), “Little Girl Lost” (famously parodied in one of The Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horror featuring a CGI Homer) and “Steel” starring Lee Marvin. “Steel” was a futuristic boxing story about a former human boxer named Steel Kelly who lives in a world where human boxing has been outlawed for being too violent and the human boxers have been replaced by fighting machines. He trains his own fighting robot, Battling Maxo, who breaks down right before a fight. Not wanting to lose his chance at winning, Kelly disguises himself as the humanoid machine and despite putting up a valiant effort loses to the machine opponent and is nearly killed. As with typical Twilight Zone episodes, it ends on a mysterious and somewhat uncharacteristically hopeful tone.


Spielberg had been involved with Matheson once before by bringing his short story Duel to life as a TV movie starring Dennis Weaver. Matheson had also co-wrote Jaws 3D, a second sequel to Spielberg’s classic thriller. He clearly knew that Matheson had a great story with “Steel” but was more interested in the setting and the story point of having robots fighting each other (something already seen in the Transformers trilogy, executive produced by Spielberg). Spielberg wanted a director who could also tell a human story within this action-packed sports drama. Calling Levy, he explained that he enjoyed his films because they were commercial and big-hearted which was precisely what he wanted for this project. Levy, excited to work with Spielberg, immediately signed on. This is Levy’s first Disney film (through Touchstone Pictures) and Spielberg’s second (after executive-producing the classic Who Framed Roger Rabbit; he’s directing the upcoming War Horse).


The film begins with Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman), a down and out former fighter, who is clearly in over his head with debt. Nevertheless, he continues to engage in fighting exhibitions where his 2000-pound boxing robots are consistently decimated. After one of these devastating fights, Charlie is informed that he has been given his long-lost 11-year-old son, Max (Dakota Goyo), to take with him on fights. At first, they vehemently do not like each other. But after encountering a smaller sparring robot named Atom, father and son begin bonding through training their new champion.


I think this is clearly Shawn Levy’s best movie to date, even beating out my previous favorite, Night at the Museum. Now, my other movie-loving friends would argue that Levy is a terrible, evil director who is as bad as Brett Ratner (for more see: The Hollywood Saloon's Saloon Shot: Rat-Branded). I believe the guy isn’t bad. I’ve watched his “Life After Film School” and he’s pretty fun and knowledgeable about the making of his films and advice he’d give to others. But with Real Steel, there is one mistake that could have been made a lot better if he had paid attention to another Disney film that is highly beloved to me. 1969’s The Love Bug.


Song: "The Love Bug Theme" by George Burns


Both Real Steel’s Charlie Kenton and The Love Bug’s Jim Douglas (Dean Jones) are down-on-their luck athletes who aren’t very likable at the beginning of their stories. They both stumble upon a piece of machinery that seems to have a life of its own. Here’s what Real Steel doesn’t have that The Love Bug has: actual mechanical sentience. Herbie the Love Bug is a character within the movie and is given ample screen time to justify it (he can skip across lakes, leak oil on villains, open his own doors, drive himself, etc.). Atom, the main robot in Real Steel, is only hinted at having sentience in one scene. This is never fully explained or brought up in detail for the rest of the film. Granted, this might have been part of a subplot that got removed from the film, but that’s a lame excuse even for me to give and I’m a pretty optimistic guy.


Another nitpick I have with this movie is the overly abundant product placement, but it’s not entirely Real Steel’s fault. It’s been happening more and more in the past 20 years. It draws your eye away from the story, from what’s important though I realize full well that where the studio’s money ends, the sponsors’ money begins. But Real Steel picks the oddest product placements ever. Of course, you see product brand names like Budweiser, Coca-Cola, Cadillac and Dr. Pepper (which makes perfect sense since they’re not going anywhere. They will exist past 2020 and beyond). But you’re telling me, that in 2020, there’s gonna be a “Bing Arena”? BING? What’s next? “Tumblr Stadium”? “eBay Theatre”? “Ask.com Library”? Pick a product that is timeless so when people watch it in 40 years, they’ll know what everything shown in the movie is!


I think Real Steel exceeds the expectations of people walking in expecting, “a stupid Rock’Em Sock’Em Robots rip-off of Transformers”. It’s just a sweet yet action-packed boxing drama that just happens to have robots hitting each other. Hugh Jackman, as usual, plays a fantastic character and as you see him fighting on screen, you just want to be up there with him cheering him on.