Nerves of Steel

Hello Everyone :-)
Way back when, my Mum and I went to see ‘Senna’ (21^st June seem SUCH a long time ago! Btw ‘Senna’ is out on Blu-Ray and DVD, buy it, rent it, whatever, just see it if you haven’t already) and before the film they showed the trailer for ‘Real Steal’. Me and Mum looked at each other with massive grins on our faces. We love Hugh Jackman and, even though I had reservations about the Transformers-ey-ness of the trailer we agreed to go and see it when it came out. So, 4 months later, abusing my Orange Wednesdays discount we went en family to see it.

In the not too distant future of 2020 Robots have replaced Humans in the arena of Boxing. ‘Real Steal’ follows Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) an ex-boxer who now makes a living beg, borrow or stealing robots to fight at underground competitions in the US. Charlie is informed of the death of his ex-girlfriend with whom he has a child, Max (Dakota Goyo) and gives custody to his ex’s sister on the condition that he looks after him for the summer. Much to Charlie’s annoyance Max blackmails Charlie into taking him with him to Robot boxing matches. After Charlie’s Robot is trashed in a fight, the two break into a scrapyard to steal anything with which they can make another Robot but Max discovers a fully formed, generation 2 robot and demands that they take him home. Together Max, Charlie and Robot ‘Atom’ work their way up through fights, fighting more advanced robots and, against all odds, triumphing until they come up against their most formidable foe.

This film reeks of cliché. The estranged son teaching his Father about what really matters, the former hero reduced to a ne’er do well and in need of a second chance, the childhood friend who has loved him all along. There’re all there, every cliché in the book but it never bothered me because the characters are so well realised.

I liked Evangeline Lily as Bailey, Charlie’s lifelong friend and landlady who harbours a soft spot for him (who wouldn’t?!?!). She’s not simpering and she’s not a doormat, she’s the slap in the face that he needs. I really warmed to her character because in the scenes where she’s watching the fights, she starts shouting and waving her arms around and that was exactly what I was like watching this film!
Hugh Jackman breaks from type a bit here and plays Charlie as a proper arse in the beginning. I mean save for his good looks, when we meet Charlie he has no redeeming features what so ever. At one point he sells his son, that’s how bad he is, he sells his own child! I love the redemption of Charlie’s character, it’s a bit corny but because his relationship with Max is so lovely it didn’t bother me.
Dakota Goya (his Dad’s called David, Mum’s called Debora and has two siblings called Devon and Dallas, I shit you not…) plays Max and he is just about the cutest thing I’ve ever seen! Child actors can be irritating but I found it hard not to love Max. He’s got such big blue eyes and loves Atom and his relationship with Charlie develops to such adorable levels. I unashamedly got swept up in the loveliness of it all.

This film is so American I’m sure that if you cut it, it would bleed stars and stripes. From the first few opening shots of vast fields, sunsets, state fairs and gingham clad country girls to the basic ‘underdog triumphing against adversity’ story line, ‘Real Steel’ shows a wholesome, rose tinted vision of the good old US of A. Oddly in a Blockbuster film such as this, I particularly like the soundtrack, the bluegrass inflected tones that accompany the wide prairie vistas and the electro beats of the Robot boxing ring. I found the mix of Score and ‘proper music’ worked really well, snaps for Danny Elfman!

The fight scenes are awesome. They were done using ‘Simul-cam’, the same technology used ‘Avatar’ where you film the actors portraying the robots (or in the case of ‘Avatar’ 8ft Smurf Cats) and simultaneously on a monitor you can see what the digitally altered outcome looks like. It’s so much better than the old green screen technology where actors would be staring at an empty scene and guessing at an eye line that would invariably be different to the one their co-star was looking at. This technique helps the whole thing look a lot more tangible and ultimately makes a slightly unbelievable premise seem entirely possible.

I’m impressed with Shawn Levy. Levy has previously directed the two ‘Night at the Museum’ films which I like in a ‘family friendly’ kind of way and ‘Date Night’ which I haven’t seen but if my friend Mark’s review is anything to go by (which it always is), he seems to have made a more cohesive picture with ‘Real Steel.

I’ve tried to avoid the obvious comparison to the ‘Transformers’ franchise but I can hold back no longer. This is the family friendly robot based movie that Transformers purports to be. We all know (even if some won’t admit it) that the ‘Transformers’ franchise is a thinly veiled attempt to make various shots of fast cars and women’s arses into as lucrative a venture as possible which means making them 12a features. Having seen all of the ‘Transformers’ films I would question this rating. I won’t go into it now (this is not the time nor the place but trust me, that time and place is coming) but I’m not sure films that feature such homophobic and racist themes, plus the depiction of women as either sex objects or idiots, should be deemed a 12a but hey, who am I to question the BBFC. Thankfully ‘Real Steel’ has none of that. There are robots hitting each other there’s one brief scene of violence but other than that, no racism, no homophobia and although there are few female characters, the lead female is strong, owns her own business and never degrades herself by being pictured sporting a push-up bra, arse in the air posing over a motorbike.

 I really really like ‘Real Steel’. It’s fun, action packed and (in spite of my cynical soul) I found it surprisingly heart warming. I wouldn’t advise taking very young children but anyone from 10 up would enjoy this. Entertaining through and through :-)

Now I fancy some…

Reasons to be Cheerful

1. NEW PICTURES FROM THE HOBBITT!!!! Yeah I might be a bit excited… The photos show the set of The Shire, Bag End and Frodo Baggins himself, Elijah Wood! From what I gather from this great set report it looks like Frodo is returning to the silver screen to help connect the dots between ‘The Hobbit’ and the existing LOTR films. On any other film I’d suspect he was doing it for the paycheque but in a project such as this, it’s clearly not the case. There’s such great affection for the Trilogy and having the prequel (I’m sure calling it a prequel is doing it a disservice) in the hands of Mr Peter Jackson can only be a good thing. I can’t wait :-)

2. A new trailer for ‘The Dark Knight Rises is going to be playing before screenings of ‘Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows’. I was going to see it anyway because I adore Guy Ritchie’s first ‘Sherlock Holmes’ but now I’m even more excited :-)

3. 10 o’clock Live has got a second series! Granted they get a 10 episode run instead of 15 and the running time is being cut from 65 to 45 minutes, but still, it’s coming back! In all honesty the cut running time might be what the show needed all along, hopefully the producers will streamline the show because it was obvious to everyone that there were certain things that worked really well (‘Listen to Mitchell’, Jimmy’s round up of the week’s news, Charlie’s more acerbic look at one aspect of the news) and some things that just didn’t (Lauren Laverne’s skits about Bankers or the privatisation of the NHS and Jimmy Carr’s weird comedy sketches where he dressed up as Kate Middleton/A riot Policeman/God, etc.). While I’m here I’d also like to suggest moving the shows place in the schedule and re-titling it accordingly. Putting a current affairs show on at 10’clock is madness, unless it’s half an hour long. ‘Newsnight’ airs at half 10 and to put anything in the firing line of Paxman and co is surely suicide. It’d be interesting to do a survey of ‘Newsnight’ viewers because I think a lot of them are younger that you’d think. Check twitter on a week night at about 11 o’clock. 9 times out of ten at least one of the top 10 trending subjects in the UK will have something to do with ‘Newsnight’. What nutter thought that this fledgling show should go up against an already established current affairs giant? The best thing to do would be to move it to 9 o’clock, call it ‘9 o’clock Live’ and then it’s accessible to the people that would otherwise be watching Paxman screaming “did you threaten to overrule him?” or whatever, that way everyone’s happy :-)

4. 100 days till the Muppet Movie!

That’s all from me today.

Goodbye till next time :-)

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