Real Steel (2011) | Sci-Fi Saturdays

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It’s Rocky, but with robots (and some people from superhero films).

In the arenas of World Robot Boxing, it takes real steel to prove your metal. For Charlie, it’s going to take that and more if he wants to win his robotic prize fights and win the love of his son, Max. Real Steel retreads several boxing stories but with a twist of using robotic fighters instead of humans. It showcases a heartwarming tale of a man struggling to make a comeback and understanding what really matters in his life: human relationships and his family.

First Impressions

A down-on-his-luck man and his son travel around the country with their boxing robot. When their robot is defeated, things look bleak until the son finds a sparring bot. The father says that it will never work, but in classic comeback fashion, and some cool training montages, the robot makes it to the big arena fight. Will it be able to defeat the champion and win? Does the robot have what it takes to show Real Steel?

Presented below is the trailer for the film.

The Fiction of The Film

In the year 2020, Charlie Kenton travels the fair circuit with his robot boxer Ambush. At one Texas fair, he is challenged by promoter Ricky (Kevin Durand) to fight an 800-pound bull. Charlie’s cockiness, as well as an antiquated robot, lead to Ambush being torn to pieces by the bull. Charlie makes a quick retreat to avoid paying Ricky money he doesn’t have. Receiving a call that his ex-girlfriend died, Charlie stops by a courthouse where Aunt Debra (Hope Davis) is seeking custody of his estranged, 11-year-old son Max (Dakota Goyo). Charlie makes a deal with her husband, Marvin (James Rebhorn), to collect $50,000 now (and the same amount at the end of the summer) to sign Max over to the aunt. All Charlie has to do is keep Max for the summer while Marvin and Debra go to Italy.

Using the “down payment” from Marvin, Charlie arranges to buy a replacement bot, Noisy Boy–a samurai-inspired robot that has been fighting in Japan. It gets delivered to Tallet’s Gym, which is owned by Bailey Tallet (Evangeline Lilly), a former girlfriend of Charlie’s, and daughter of his former boxing coach. Max is enamored with the robot and shows Charlie how the voice recognition module works by speaking Japanese to the bot. Charlie wants as little to do with Max as possible and tries to pawn him off on Bailey, but Max blackmails Charlie into taking him on tour with Noisy Boy. They start at the Crash Palace, an underground robot fighting arena, which is operated by Finn (Anthony Mackie).

Noisy Boy gets his block knocked off by Midas, and Charlie is, again, out of money. He and Max break into a junkyard that evening in the rain. Max slides down a muddy hill and discovers an older G-2 model robot buried in the mud, which Charlie wants nothing to do with. Max pulls the robot out of the mud with Charlie’s winch and takes it back to the truck. At Tallet’s, Max cleans it off and discovers it’s an old sparring bot named Atom, which still works. Bailey tells him it has a shadow function that allows it to watch a human and mimic their moves. Max dreams of Atom fighting again. Bailey explains to Max that Charlie used to be a professional boxer who used to have real heart, before he gave up on himself.

Charlie and Max head to Atlanta to get a fight with Atom. Max sees the robot boxing champion Zeus, created by Tak Mashido (Karl Yune) and backed by Farra Lemkova (Olga Fonda). Finn sends Max to the Zoo for a fight. Max makes a deal with Kingpin (John Gatins) for Atom to fight Metro for $1,000. Charlie thinks this is ridiculous, but Max has been practicing and surprises everyone when Atom shows he’s tougher than anyone thought. Max converts Atom to Noisy Boy’s voice recognition software and uses shadow mode to make him dance. Charlie wants him to do that in the ring, to give the fans a real show. After several other decisive wins, Atom gets a chance to fight Twin Cities, a two-headed robot, in a WRB league fight.

Atom is the 2nd fight on the bill, and before the match, Farra offers Max 200 grand to sell their “little robot” as a practice bot for Zeus. Charlie gets excited, but Max says no, as he has faith in the smaller robot. Atom destroys Twin Cities, which suffers a system crash, and Max calls out Farra, challenging Zeus to a fight with Atom. On the way out of the arena, Ricky, who has tracked Charlie down, beats him up and takes their prize money. Charlie drops Max back with his Aunt. The boy says he has only ever wanted his dad to fight for him. After talking with Bailey, Charlie realizes that Atom may just have a chance, and apologizes to Max before their last big fight.

A huge crowd has gathered for the fight between the underdog Atom and the champion Zeus. Ricky makes a huge wager with Finn that Atom won’t survive round one. Atom manages to survive the first round, barely, and Finn comes for Ricky, who doesn’t have the money. As the fight goes on, Atom manages to hold his own until near the end of round four when his voice module breaks. Saved by the bell, Max switches him into shadow mode and pleads with Charlie to fight the last round manually. Charlie uses the tough little robot’s ability to take a hit to deplete the battery in Zeus before coming back and nearly knocking the bigger bot out. The final bell rings, with the judges awarding the belt to Zeus. The crowd is not happy and cheers on Max, Charlie, and Atom–now dubbed the “people’s champion.”

“This is just a show. People want to see something they have never seen.” – Charlie

History in the Making

Everyone likes a good under-bot story, and Real Steel is certainly that. This much-adored story about robot boxers and the people that control them was adapted from a 1956 short story by author Richard Matheson. Hollywood was no stranger to Matheson’s work, having adapted The Incredible Shrinking Man in 1957 and Somewhere in Time in 1980. But the work most closely associated with the author is the multiple adaptations of his post-apocalyptic vampiric story, “I Am Legend,” filmed as The Last Man on Earth in 1964, The Omega Man in 1971, and under the original title in 2007. He was also notable for creating some of the most iconic episodes for The Twilight Zone, which included “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet”, “Little Girl Lost”, and “Steel”. The latter episode, from season 5 in 1963, featured Lee Marvin as an ex-boxer who controlled a dilapidated robot boxer named Maxo. When Maxo goes on the fritz prior to a bout, Marvin must disguise himself as the robotic battler and step in the ring to avoid forfeiting the money from the match. It’s a much different story than what ended up being Real Steel, primarily formatted for the shorter television format.

The film’s screenplay was adapted by John Gatins, who would go on to write Kong: Skull Island and Power Rangers. He fleshed out the themes and ideas from the original story (and adaptation), creating a heartwarming story about family, perseverance, and the triumph of the human spirit. Real Steel was directed by Canadian Shawn Levy, known at this time for his Night at the Museum films and the comedic adventure film Date Night. He would go on to greater fame working on several back-to-back films with fellow countryman Ryan Reynolds, including Free Guy, The Adam Project, and a re-teaming with Hugh Jackman in the hit Marvel Cinematic Universe film Deadpool & Wolverine. As for the stars of the film, Jackman was already an international star, having had his debut in the Marvel X-Men series as Wolverine, along with starring in two sci-fi films, both from 2006, The Prestige and The Fountain. Evangeline Lilly was known for her role as Kate on the hit television series Lost. This was her first starring film role after that series had concluded. Dakota Goyo had already acted in several films and television shows. He would reteam with Jackman, both voicing characters in Rise of the Guardians. Rounding out the remainder of the main cast is Anthony Mackie, previously in The Adjustment Bureau (and also in The Hurt Locker with Lilly), and Kevin Durand, who had appeared with both Lilly in Lost and Jackman in X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Genre-fication

The world of sci-fi cinema needs more films about robots that are not murderous automatons from (or in) the future. It’s a very short list of films about sentient robots that are friendly, with the likes of Number Five from Short Circuit, The Iron Giant, and WALL-E topping the list. But Real Steel doesn’t have autonomous robots. Rather, these are remote-controlled robots designed for one thing: Boxing. Who hasn’t dreamed about having their very own Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robot to play with? While the robots of the film are just more advanced versions of Battle Bots, their design takes inspiration from many other robotic stories. Besides the inspiration from the Mattel toy mentioned above, characters seem to have been inspired by such varied things as fencing armor, samurai designs (and the Shogun Warriors robots), and robots created from spare parts–such as Metro, who appears to have been built from parts of a commuter train. It chooses to show robots with a lot of different characteristics. Charlie’s initial bot, Ambush, is a run-down bot that has seen better days, while Noisy Boy is a slick and expensive-looking fighter, complete with digital readouts on his gauntlets that display messages. Atom (potentially a sound-alike of Adam, the first man and the first robot) shows a smaller and beefier design that befits his talent of taking punches. The idea of robotic characters with different looks and personalities was the basis behind the Transformers toy line. These characters have now entered the robotic hall of fame with characters from Pacific Rim, The Black Hole, and Star Wars.

But the robots are only the overt science-fiction element for the film. At its core, Real Steel is a film about boxing. Well, boxing and family, plus several other themes that will be discussed below. Audiences might find that the film parallels the first Rocky film with Sylvester Stallone. In that film, an underdog fighter (Rocky Balboa) challenges the reigning champ (Apollo Creed) for the title. Rocky shows that he can take punch after punch without going down. He ends up losing, but becomes a favorite fighter of many fans due to his perseverance. The similarities are obvious. But that’s not the only boxing film that inspired this story. The Champ (a 1979 remake of a 1931 film) tells the story of a washed-up Floridian boxer, Billy, and his son TJ–who thinks his dad is the greatest and always refers to him as ‘Champ.’ The film deals with Billy trying to make a name for himself again, but also dealing with raising his son. This is the relationship that Max aspires to have with his father, even though it’s a rocky (no pun intended) start. That brings in the third contender for filmic inspiration, which is another Stallone film, Over the Top. In this film, Stallone’s character is an arm wrestler and has been out of his son’s life for a decade. They travel the country, entering matches and bonding with each other as father and son. This also parallels Real Steel in the relationship between Charlie and Max. While the film draws inspiration from all these various sources, it stands on its own as a strong example of being able to build something new by standing on the shoulders of those who have come before.

Societal Commentary

When the audience is first introduced to Charlie, he is a self-absorbed and cocky man who is barely managing to squeak by on the money he earns from battling his robot in the most out of the way locations, like county fairs. He had once been an up-and-coming boxer who did better than not, but when boxing became outlawed, he lost his passion and his energy. He is now deep in debt, and when provided with an opportunity to reunite with his son, he thinks more about how much money he can make from the boy, rather than trying to create a meaningful relationship. Real Steel paints Charlie as a man who is more capable of interacting with his mechanized boxers than understanding humans. Through the course of the film, and with the tenacity of Max and the love and understanding from Bailey, Charlie manages to regain the love he once held for the sport and learn how to interface with people again to build meaningful relationships. The key to this is the intrusion of Max coming back into his life.

The most heartbreaking moment in the film is after Charlie and Max have spent much time together, won several fights, and it looks like they will be able to have a chance to fight Zeus for the title. Both are roughed up by Ricky and his goons, Charlie much more than Max, and their remaining winnings are stolen. Defeated, Charlie takes Max back to his Aunt’s house and retreats once again from society. Bailey reminds him that just because Aunt Debra has money, that doesn’t make her a better choice to take care of Max. Charlie returns and apologizes to Max, who says that he only wanted Charlie to fight for him, the same way he fights in the ring–tenacious and unapologetic. Max just wanted to feel needed by his father, the same way Charlie needed someone to believe in him, and the way Max believed in Atom. The film’s main message is that love and companionship can go further than material possessions. Charlie had seemed to have forgotten this lesson, having drifted between jobs for so long, always trying to scrape up enough to get by. He sees Debra as someone he can’t compete with due to her social standing and finances, but to Max, that’s not what’s important. Max would rather live in poverty with his father, someone who should love him, than as a ward of relatives who would take care of him out of duty.

The Science in The Fiction

The world of Real Steel is set just shy of a decade beyond the film’s release date, in 2020. Writing this article from the other side of that date is funny, because in the world of the film they got robot boxing, while all we got was a pandemic. It’s unclear how long robot boxing has been in business, but at least since 2016, based on a line of dialogue in the film. These robots are all just slightly beyond modern technology, even today. There are three main modes of control that Charlie is seen using with his robots: wireless controllers, voice-activated, and the awesome shadow mode. Ambush fights based on instructions it receives from a large handheld remote control unit–which looks like a big RC controller for model cars and airplanes. This requires constant vigilance by the user. The type of controller used by Noisy Boy is a little more forgiving. It takes voice commands and turns them into an automated routine. The delay in the reception of the speech can sometimes be a problem, and it’s also an easy device to get damaged. Finally, we see Charlie (and Max before him) using Atom’s shadow mode, which allows a human to pantomime an action, and that action is repeated by the robot. Surprisingly, this is the most fluid of the controls, even though it requires a person to be ultimately in control of the bot. The ‘human factor’ with this interface is the thing that allows Atom to finally defeat (or nearly defeat) Zeus. That robot runs on an artificial intelligence sort of programmatic algorithm that makes thousands of decisions every second, but it was built for fighting other robotic challengers and isn’t capable of anticipating the random moves of a real person. This leads into the theme of the film that people–with emotions and unpredictable behavior–are still better than robots (but only in real life, movies about robots are cool).

The Final Frontier

The film creates some interesting locations for the robotic boxing matches. There’s the county fair, where Charlie’s robot must fight a steer (clearly mentioned in the credits that no actual animal was injured). There’s an abandoned Zoo, which ties in with the Frankensteined robot Metro. An abandoned piece of human infrastructure hosting a bot created from abandoned pieces of human transport. But the most interesting is the Crash Palace, which appears to have been built in an abandoned car factory. The rows of car-crafting robots, no doubt predecessors of Noisy Boy and Midas, line the walkway that the bots have to enter. It’s a clever nod, especially since the film was filming in Motor City, Detroit.

Real Steel has its detractors, but honestly, how can you hate a film about robots battling robots? It’s got a solid cast (including a good child actor, which is hard to come by), good action, and some real emotional moments. Sure it has a lot of elements from other stories, but it crafts those into something that is greater than the sum of the individual pieces. It’s definitely a film that deserves another film in the same world, perhaps one that explores the world of the WRB. This is a film that can impress both the science-fiction fans as well as the sports comeback story fans.

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