Real Steel (2011) Dir: Shawn Levy
- Ridley Coote
- 6 days ago
- 2 min read
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Full disclosure, I am not a big fan of Shawn Levy's films. I think they often come across way too childish for my liking, but then, a lot of people enjoy them, so he must be doing something right. This 2011 science fiction sports film is one of his higher rated films, at least on Letterboxd, but even so, my expectations were pretty low, if I'm totally honest. It's not the kind of film I'd usually watch, but sometimes it's nice to try those out.
Some of the CGI was actually really quite good, although I got the impression that Levy and crew went a little overboard with it, much like Marvel films have been criticised for. For what it's worth though, I did like how the film looked, particularly the robots, which I thought were cool and fairly varied - they reminded me a little of the 'jaegers' from 'Pacific Rim', at least in their rough design.
The story definitely ripped off Rocky, but it did at least do so in a pretty fun way. The narrative certainly wasn't perfect, it was full of tropes and bad dialogue, but I can't pretend like I didn't have a good time with it. Sometimes a dumb film can be really enjoyable, and this one can absolutely lay claim to that. The silliness of it all made for surprisingly entertaining viewing.
Hugh Jackman's American accent was a little bit suspect at times, and his acting in general wasn't the best, but I still found myself enjoying his performance. There was a real sense of fun about him that was really quite infectious. He didn't take the role too seriously, which I think really helped my enjoyment of both his performance and the film as a whole.
Dakota Goyo had the tough job of making a very irritating child character likable, but, in fairness, he did a pretty good job of doing so. There were definitely still elements of his persona that I found very silly, but Goyo managed to make his character feel like more than a poorly written mad-at-his-dad boy. I also thought he showed the growing relationship between he and his father, played by Jackman, quite nicely, so credit where it's due on that.
In regards to the supporting cast, I felt that Evangeline Lilly's character was actually pretty watchable, and the actress played her well, but she didn't have nearly enough screentime for my liking. Meanwhile, Kevin Durand and Anthony Mackie provided a pair of fun if a little tropy supporting characters. Durand absolutely nailed his cowboy-like persona, in fairness to him.
Overall, despite its various flaws, I can't deny that I had a lot of fun watching this one, certainly more than I expected. It's not a film I'll watch often, but I absolutely do not regret having watched it. It served its purpose; to provide an evening's entertainment, and gave me more than I thought it would. On that front, it more than succeeded in its task.
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