Real Steel Review

Under the robot gimmick sits the oldest sports plot there is, and Shawn Levy runs it without apology: washed-up fighter, estranged kid, one last shot at the champion. What makes it work is that the machines are physically present. Legacy Effects built animatronic rigs the actors could touch and lean on, and the digital work was matched to that mass, so Atom lands punches with consequence rather than the floaty impact that ruins most computer generated combat.

Jackman plays Charlie Kenton as an unlikable man for longer than a family film usually permits, ducking debts, selling a robot he cannot control, treating his son as an asset to be traded. Dakota Goyo is asked for more charm than any eleven year old can supply, and the sequence where he and Atom dance for a crowd is the film openly begging.

Evangeline Lilly gets a part that consists of waiting in a gym and believing in Charlie. The final bout against Zeus is staged with unusual clarity, every exchange legible, the crowd noise built rather than assumed. The emotional beats land on schedule because they were placed on a schedule, and you can feel the gears turning under every reconciliation.