The Robots-in-the-Ring Actioner “Real Steel” borrows so liberally from plot elements found in Sylvester Stallone’s filmography, the Great Mumbly One should at least be given a “Story By” credit on IMDB. So many elements are pilfered, in fact, that the film could have easily been called “Rocky Sock’em Robots”.
Much like the original “Rocky,” this is the story of a scrappy underdog who gets an unexpected shot at the title. In this case the scrappy underdog is a beat up sparring robot named Atom who was found in a junkyard by scrappy underdog, Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) and his scrappy little kid Max (Dakota Goyo). The year is 2020, you see, and the sport of Boxing has been transformed into a match between menacing machines. Charlie is a derelict who used to be a boxer but is now an unneeded relic so he is clinging on to his failed past by putting robots in the ring and watching them get demolished.
Much like “Rocky”: Atom must clash against the reigning champion whose owner is a beautiful Russian woman named Farra Lemcova (Olga Fonda) that is reminiscent of Brigitte Nielsen who played a beautiful Russian woman in “Rocky IV”. Here the main opponent is named Zeus (not Apollo) and he is touted with the statement “Whatever Zeus hits, he kills.” Well I’ve also heard it said that “Whatever Drago hits, he destroys” but the Italian Stallion proved that proclamation wrong in front of a screaming crown in Drago’s Mother Russia.
The most blatant comparison to a Stallone film and “Real Steel” has to do with the relationship between Charlie and his son, Max. Years ago, Charlie had abandoned his son, leaving behind the child and his mother. Now, the mother has died and Charlie is forced to try and reconcile with Max as the two travel across country, taking up robot battle bouts along the way. There is also a rich relative fighting Charlie for custody of the precocious child. This is almost exactly the same outline for Stallone’s finest achievement (sarcasm), “Over the Top”; the film where Sly essentially ripped himself off and remade “Rocky” with wrist-wrestling replacing boxing. They should have called that “Wrist Rocky”.
The only reason I harp on the similarities is because what appears to be an Original Hollywood Movie that isn’t a rehash/remake/do-over/reimagining like nearly every other flick of its kind these days turns out to be a warmed over re-serving of the familiar. They can call it “Formula” but its really just lazy regurgitation. Funny enough, “Real Steel” is loosely based on an old “Twilight Zone” but doesn’t bare any resemblance at all to the Lee Marvin episode entitled “Steel”.
While the film does take place in the near future, it doesn’t look it. The clothes and architecture do not vary at all from the present day to the point that it is easy to forget that we are supposedly in the year 2020. Occasionally there is a highly stylized vehicle seen that hints at “things to come” but these designs merely standout as misplaced next to pedestrian cars and trucks sharing the scene with them. You get a sense that an effort was made to make these elements subtle since the film takes place so close to our current time but subtleties should be thrown out the window when your story centers on giant boxing robots that are so far removed from our current technological abilities.
The big, bad robots are the main attraction but they, too, play as old hat. After Michael Bay has assaulted the modern audience with his “Transformers” spectacles, it is hard to get too roused by a couple of machines duking it out. Again, we’ve seen it. If they were going to remake a Stallone movie with robots they should have gone with “Death Race 2000” cast with “Transformers”. Or an “Oscar” remake with “Robocop”. Or “Rhinestone” maybe? Or they could leave well enough alone and come up with an original idea.