Real Steel

No splitting this Atom, it has got a rock solid heart.

Real Steel is directed by Shawn Levy and collectively adapted to the screen by John Gatins, Dan Gilroy and Jeremy Leven from a Richard Matheson short story called Steel. It stars Hugh Jackman, Dakota Goyo, Evangeline Lilly, Anthony Mackie, Kevin Durand, Hope Davis and James Rebhorn. Music is scored by Danny Elfman and cinematography by Mauro Fiore.

Set in the near future, robot boxing is a big crowd pulling sport. After a struggling robot operator is introduced to an 11-year-old son he has never known, they stumble upon a discarded robot at a junk yard....

We can all moan about the mimicry of an idea and the clichés that dominate Real Steel, but you really got to hand it to the...

I wonder if this was originally written to be a Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots movie, but when they couldn't get the rights they just decided to make it anyway. In either case, it's not very good. Amazing that you could take a movie about anthropomorphic robots and manage to still make it into a cliche sports film.

Final rating:½: - Boring/disappointing. Avoid where possible.