Sunday, March 11, 2012

"Real Steel" [B+]

Even though this story is full of mechanical men, it's also full of heart. It's about the journey of Charlie and Max, a father and son who need to find themselves and each other.

The journey takes place in the grimy underworld of robot boxing. This is the world populated by gamblers, crooks and lowlifes. It is the world into which Charlie has fallen, due to his losing fight with his personal demons. His newly found son, Max, gleefully follows him into this world in order to play with the wonderful robots, which are essentially huge walking, fighting video games.

Even though the fighters and the situation are completely invented, the story and the characters come across as very real. The near future setting seems simultaeously improbable and inevitable. It is absolutely as believable as it needs to be for the story to work.

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