Real Steel

Yes, Real Steel is a movie about boxing robots.  It takes place in the future, and anything is possible in the future, so why not fighting robots?  There isn’t anything super original about the premise of the film.  It’s another boxing movie, just one that doesn’t use humans as the fighters as most movies would.  So obviously it requires some good special effects to pull it off.  And the special effects are very good here.
People have gotten to see big robots square off in the Transformers films already, so they had to do something different here.  Putting them in a boxing ring does make them come off more strategic and tactical.  And in this case, the robots don’t have a mind of their own.  They’re being controlled by humans.  Hugh Jackman plays Charlie Kenton, a former professional boxer himself, who now operates boxing robots.  So he is the brains behind each movement that his machine makes in the ring.  This is important so that the movie gets you invested in the human characters which is a lot easier than simply just rooting for giant pieces of steel.  In fact, this is exactly what makes the movie work.  Charlie starts off as a no-good has-been boxer who will do just about anything he can for money.  He’s never really been in his son’s life either.  So when certain circumstances cause Charlie to take care of his son for the summer, things slowly begin to change.  It’s the reacquainting and eventual bonding with his son that carries the film.  The boxing robots are their mutual interest that brings them together.
Whoever chose the look of the robots did a good job here.  They picked exactly the right-looking robot to play the big underdog that Charlie and his son train, called Atom.  There’s something in its (robot) eyes that almost seems to convey emotion.  It’s as if the robot itself bonds with the son too throughout the training.  And you really do root for Atom when it takes on the more massive and superior looking robots in the ring.  Really the film has a “Rocky”-like quality to it, with the whole underdog theme and all.  And the end of the film will actually have some people getting teary-eyed.  For me though, the ending is a bit overdone and cheesy.  It seems like it’s trying harder than ever to get you to cry or stand up and cheer, and also like it’s ripping the pages right out of other boxing movie scripts – like Rocky and others.  But it’s a fun ride to at least see how they get there.  It’s rock’em sock’em robots for the future and winds up being fairly entertaining.

http://www.examiner.com/movie-in-philadelphia/danny-porcaro