Real Steel

Are you talking to me?

My wife is a big Hugh Jackman fan (not the Wolverine Jackman, the Leopold one) while I am a Sci-Fi sucker so this movie seemed like a match made in heaven. Furthermore, after the last Transformers movie, the bar was set so low that any robot movie was considered a genre saviour.

As I entered the theater, my expectations were pretty low although I secretly expected to be pleasantly surprised (not very hard). And I did! Not all good though...

Let me start with the good stuff: Wolverine is in it, so is that cute girl from Lost (Evangeline Lilly). Add to that cast AMAZING visual effects (thank you Mr. Spielberg - perfect blend of CGI and real models) and...  uh... and that's it.

I try to keep my posts short so I won't rattle on and on about how bad the rest of this movie is (although I could). Shawn Levy now leads my worst directors list, evidenced by two little examples below:

• Some shots are just simple garbage (close-ups with floating heads, or missing foreheads);
• A storyline my dog could write (so many clichés you can spoil it for yourself) and that is incoherent at best (the awareness (??) of the robot, the father-son future relationship, etc.)

Overall, this movie is a mixed bag of emotions. It can hurl you in in a moment's notice just to kick you in the gut right after. If you just want to clear your head and watch some good special-effects, forgetting the screenplay as you leave the theater, this is the movie for you: fast-paced and engaging at times. However, if you are the kind of viewer that stays for the end credits or if your the kind of person who knows what the Oscars are for (other than best movie and actors), then definitely steer clear of this (another) Levy's brain fart.

Name: Real Steel
Genre: Action/Sci-Fi
Date of Release: 2011
Director: Shawn Levy
Actors: Hugh Jackman, Evangeline Lilly and Dakota Goyo
Rating: 5+/10