Real Steel (Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo)

This one of our family favorites. Jackman is great as Charlie, an ex-pugilist and hapless opportunist (with a good heart buried in there somewhere), turned owner-operator of a robot boxer. The robot boxers are huge finely-tuned remote-controlled robots that now dominate the boxing ring, and the movie makes them appear very real. Evangeline Lilly is beautiful and convincing as Bailey who still believes in Charlie, but is becoming fed-up with his get-rich-quick schemes. Kevin Durand steals the scenes he has as Charlie's rival/nemesis, and Anthony Mackie does a great job as the streetwise fight promoter. I let my 8 and 11 y.o. sons watch this movie and they love it. There is a tiny bit of rough language, and only a brief and subtle sexual inuendo between Charlie and Bailey, when just back in from the road Charlie jokingly says to her, "I need a shower. Bailey, you want to take a shower?" She laughingly rebuffs him of course, and there is no physical intimacy displayed between the two of them. At one point after giving up custody of his son because he realizes he has endangered him, an emotionally and physically drained Charlie returns to Bailey and lays next to her and sleeps in a very caring and respectful way. The next morning they share a single kiss and as Charlie prepares to leave again to go to his son, Bailey remarks, "You came a long way for just one kiss", indicating that that's all that happened. Also, there is a fist-fight scene when people come to collect a debt from Charlie that may be scary for younger kids 8 and under. IMHO, compared to the risque' and deviant themes some movies foist upoin our kids these days, Real Steal is very tolerable in that regard and delivers a fast-paced story with heart and good special effects, and we meet a variety of characters along the way. In the end we see the fruits of the efforts of a father and son who find each other and a place in the world together. At the heart of this story are themes of the value of loyalty, family, contrition, courage, accepting responsibility and taking initiative on your beliefs and dreams. In the end and even with all his faults, Charlie, who is never really portrayed as a hero, learns to be a better man and father. And it's all done against the back-drop of giant brawling robots!!! My kids keep asking when the sequel is coming....

Great movie

Cool movie

My son will watch this movie over and over and over again. He even knows the dance

Good movie

What a great movie. Sure, the storyline is predictable, but the entertainment value is huge. The thing about this movie is that I could see the depicted robot fights, the computer technology, basically everything about it, as coming about in the normal course of our society. A wholly believable story, probably one of the easiest SF movies to watch in terms of suspending disbelief in quite some time -- and it's worth mentioning that this actually *is* science fiction in the classic sense; a little technology, all of it reasonable, around which wraps a good story. It's not a fantasy, as are many so-called SF stories today.So here we have really great robots, some awesome robot fighting, a not-overly annoying kid, and scenes that are (obviously intentionally) reminiscent of big-arena sports today, all combined with some feel-good stuff in the classic sense.It kind of looks like a kid's movie before you watch it; then when you watch it, there are adult-ish elements; at the end, I wondered who they thought they were marketing to? Perhaps that's why this didn't do all that well at the box office: the kid probably turned off the hard core SF types, the violence probably turned off legions of mommies and daddies, and the people who did go and enjoy it didn't make the case to others that it really wasn't a kid's movie or a movie that is all that violent in the living-things-getting-hurt sense of the word.Well, whatever the case there may be, I say, forget anything anyone says and just sit down with the desire to be entertained. I think you'll find that entertainment is delivered as desired, and in spades.They clearly set it up (very well) for a sequel, but it's unlikely we'll see one, again because of the box office performance. Too bad. I really, really liked it. I think you probably will too.

Excelente y una buena ensenanza deja

I talked my son into watching this movie with me and he enjoyed it very much. The battles are entertaining and the side stories are interesting as well. A+