Note: My personal blog is on indefinite hiatus, however I am cross-posting from my newspaper blog at The Marshall Independent and the print-only TV Guide.
Real Steel has an extremely unoriginal plot line. And you know what, who cares? I liked it.
Real Steel is loosely based on a 1956 short story by Richard Matheson which was first made into a Twilight Zone episode in 1964. “Loosely based” means it has about the same relationship to the short story/TZ episode as it does to the Rock’em Sock’em Robots toy, which also premiered in 1964. They’re all about robot boxers.
The movie was begat by way of The Champ, first made with Wallace Beery and Jackie Cooper in 1931, then remade with Jon Voigt and Ricky Schroder in 1979. However Real Steel delivers a happy ending begat by Rocky. Which is a relief since the ‘79 version of “The Champ” has been called “the saddest movie in the world” and is used in psychology experiments to make people cry.
Like “Steel” the movie is about a former boxer, now owner/manager of a fighting robot. Like “The Champ” he is an irresponsible lush, a gambler, and has a son.
That’s the point of departure. “The Champ” was raising a son who had never known his mother. “Real Steel’s” Charlie Kenton, played by Hugh Jackman, never knew he had a son by an old girlfriend until the message to attend a custody hearing lands on him.
“The Champ’s” son adored his irresponsible gambling lush of a dad. Charlie’s son Max, played by aspiring scene-stealer Dakota Goyo, thinks dad is a jerk. Max also thinks he’s smarter than Charlie and proves it more than once.
To further miscegenate the plot, Goyo played in the 2007 movie “Resurrecting the Champ” about a homeless man who was a former heavyweight contender. He wasn’t a robot though.
“The Champ” fought for money so he could keep his son, rather than give him to his birth mother and her rich husband.
Charlie is about to blithely sign custody of his son over to the boy’s aunt and her rich husband, when he figures out he can extort money from rich husband by offering to surrender custody only after they’ve had a European vacation.
“The Champ” redeemed himself through his love for his son. Charlie eventually straightens his act out by listening to good advice, from Max and his sometime partner and sometime girlfriend Bailey, played by Evangeline Lilly.
Lilly splendidly pulls off playing the tough chick who is nonetheless very attractive, perhaps due to being radiantly pregnant during filming.
Charlie’s luck begins to change when after loosing his last fighting robot and welshing on his bets, he takes Max on a midnight raid of a robot junkyard looking for spare parts. There Max discovers an obsolete early-model sparring robot called “Atom” which he believes, in a rare moment his common sense slips, can be rebuilt into a contender.
Here’s where the movie could have gone disastrously wrong, but didn’t. They don’t anthropomorphize the robot, and its adorability quotient is kept to a minimum, thank Heaven!
The success of the Little Robot that Could is due to Bailey’s mechanical expertise, Max’s knowledge of the fight game, and Charlie’s ability to program his own boxing skill into the robot.
Of course there is a match with the title holder. Of course Charlie bonds with Max. Of course Atom, like Rocky, loses on a split decision. And of course there will be a rematch.
Take your kids to see this one, it’s as good an excuse as any to see it yourself, and watch for “Real Steel 2” in 2014.