I watched Real Steel to try and get a feel for Shawn Levy’s directorial style before Starfighter comes out. Also I’ve had this one on my personal watchlist for a while. Throughout the over two hour runtime, I never felt like the film dragged. Adapting a Richard Matheson story to the screen isn’t always easy (see What Dreams May Come and I Am Legend) but screenwriter John Gatins infuses the action with enough heart to keep things moving. While the story owes much to 1979’s The Champ, the relationship between Hugh Jackman’s washed up boxer/roboboxer and his estranged son genuinely moved me.
With both Spielberg and Zemekis as executive producers and backed up by the combined powerhouses of Amblin and Disney, I’m surprised that this film didn’t do better. I vaguely remember that the marketing wasn’t especially memorable. Certainly not enough to get butts in theater seats. The robot effects are on par with Bay’s Transformers and coming out around the same time as the third installment, this film might have suffered from robot fatigue. While the film doesn’t set itself up for a sequel, it would’ve been cool to see a Rocky II style rematch between the two main robots.
