As technology becomes more and more pervasive, and as computers do increasingly remarkable things, it’s easy to forget about the spark of human ingenuity behind every innovation. The iPhone is an amazing piece of engineering, but its slick touch screen and wafer thin circuitry took shape in the mind of the late Steve Jobs long before the first one rolled off an assembly line.
Without Jobs, there would be no Angry Birds, grandparents would still carry family photos in purses and wallets, and diners would have to manually calculate tips. While technology enriches life and makes certain tasks easier, some filmmakers are so enamored with it, they seem to have forgotten the importance of the human element in telling a story. The three-dimensional Transformers of this past summer’s hit movie were awesome to behold, but “The Dark of the Moon” was a vacuous experience, void of emotional substance. Movies that don’t even try to touch my heart or stir my thoughts depress me.
Now comes another film about fighting robots. You might think the title, “Real Steel,” is about the machines that engage in battles of metal and wire, but you’d be wrong. It’s actually about what an aging has-been discovers is still inside of him when his 11-year-old son becomes a part of his life. In “Real Steel,” robots have replaced boxers in the arena. Although the movie is set in the near future, evidence of the past exists in the decaying edges of the world, from a dilapidated boxing gym to a shabby carnival.
Charlie Kenton is at home in these frayed ends. Once a top boxer, he’s been reduced to lugging around piecemeal robots and controlling them in low tier matches. Charlie has a weakness for quick money, and routinely gambles to get it, but rarely wins. He seems to owe everybody and his uncle money, and has become as skilled at giving his debtors the slip as he once was at throwing a right hook. Circumstances reunite Charlie and his estranged son, Max. Charlie is more reluctant to take charge of his boy than he is to pay off his debts, and immediately tries to pan him off on an ex-girlfriend. His son loves robot boxing, however, and manipulates his dad into taking him on a road tour with a new fighter.
Things don’t go well, and the two find themselves breaking into a junkyard on a rainy night and looking for scraps from which to build another contender. Charlie is truly on his last leg. Then his son finds something that changes their destinies: a dented, but agile, second generation sparring bot with the ability to shadow the movements of its controller. They call it Atom, and before you can say “Rock ‘em, sock ‘em robots,” Charlie is working his way up from scrap heap brawls to official league competition. Waiting at the end of their journey is Zeus, a world champion robot whose programming enables him to adapt to any situation in a fight, reducing his dependency on his controller.
From beginning to end, “Real Steel” connects with every swing. The relationship between father and son develops naturally over time, and the chemistry between Hugh Jackman, who plays Charlie, and Dakota Goyo, who plays Max, is solid. The fights are visually and emotionally exhilarating, and far more appealing than the more complex battles of the Transformers movies. And director Shawn Levy, with help from several writers, strikes a perfect balance between action, drama and humor. While there are no surprises along the way, I was never bored.
Above all, “Real Steel” never loses sight of its core relationship or central theme. I like how Max scrapes away the years of bad decisions and self-loathing that have encrusted his father to reveal a good man. And I love when a nearly demolished Atom mimics the boxing moves of Charlie in a last ditch effort to survive the brutal fight against Zeus. By showing that Charlie and Atom are one and the same, Levy makes it clear that computers can only do what we tell them to do, and that the human spirit is far more remarkable than any technological innovation. What an inspiring movie! See it in a theater.
Rated PG-13 for some violence and brief language. Three stars out of four. Email David Laprad at dlaprad@hamiltoncountyherald.com.