In the world of 2020 where real human boxers have been replaced by fighting robots, Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) is a washed up boxer who tried to make the move to the robot boxing world, but hasn’t had much luck. Way over his head in debt, and in need of some quick bucks, he puts his only possession, his robot, up against a 2000 pound bull in a fight to the death. Unfortunately he brings his robot back in pieces. Then an 11 year old boy turns up who the courts claim is Charlie’s son Max (Dakota Goyo), and Charlie figures out a way to “sell” Charlie to get back into the robot game.

This is “Rocky” meets “Transformers”! This is an interesting concept for a film, fighting robots! The robots have a personality. When I was a kid we spent a lot of Saturdays on “Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots!

The star of this film is little Dakota Goyo. He is really a good actor. This kid has a ton of talent. Hugh Jackman is also very good playing the “Han Solo” type of character who’s lovable hero who’s always getting himself in trouble, mostly due to his own pride. There are some other good characters too. Evangeline Lilly plays Bailey Tallet, owner of her father’s gym where Charlie trains and repairs his robot. She’s a caring and faithful friend who’s running out of patience on Charlie’s shenanigans. The fighting sequences are AWESOME. Every bit as good as other great “human” boxing movies. There’s a whole lot of action and suspense the locations and seedy characters at the fighting arenas in the “lower class” unlicensed fighting locations remind me of the cockfighting pits in the Philippines, whereas the high glitz and glamour of the official WRF championship fight was better than a Mandalay Bay Las Vegas fight!

All in all it’s a long movie, a little over 2 hours, but it’s so interesting you hardly notice. This is really a great adventure movie with a great David and Goliath story that is fun for all ages. The relationship between Charlie and Max is really endearing. This is a very good film.

==Written by Ed Goettman ==

==From: Ed's Review Dot Com (www.edsreview.com)==

Sometime in the not-too-distant future, boxing has been outlawed and replaced by fighting matches with robots. Big robots. Hulking, rock 'em, sock 'em mechanical robots. But if those machines are cutting edge, Real Steel sticks to an old-fashioned style of storytelling, with a tale of a down-and-out fight manager (Hugh Jackman) looking for a good 'bot to get back in the game, and get back out of debt. Hearts are further tugged by the arrival of this guy's 11-year-old son (Dakota Goyo), who hasn't seen his dad in many years but now needs tending. There's something endearing about the way nobody ever pauses to remark on the fact that they are in the presence of giant remote-controlled prizefighting robots; it's taken for granted in this cockeyed universe. Loosely inspired by a Richard Matheson-penned episode of The Twilight Zone, Shawn Levy's film is lavishly mounted and fairly ridiculous--although in this case, the human interactions are more preposterous and formulaic than the fun robot action. Jackman plays to his roguish strengths, Evangeline Lilly (Lost) gets the perfunctory love interest role, and the villains are uncomplicatedly hissable, from Jackman's good ol' boy rival (Kevin Durand) to the heavily accented owners (Olga Fonda, Karl Yune) of the most fearsome of robots, the undefeated Zeus. If you can imagine Rocky restaged with a pile of spare parts, you might be the audience for Real Steel. --Robert Horton