ROCKY goes five rounds with Short Circuit in Real Steel, a futuristic action adventure.
In 2020, former boxer Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) boxes robots for a living, but he's on a losing streak and is massively in debt to Ricky (Kevin Durand).
Charlie thinks his prayers have been answered when he sells custody of his 11-year-old son Max (Dakota Goyo) to the boy's aunt and uncle for $100,000. As part of the deal, he must look after the boy for the summer.
Father and son unexpectedly bond over an abandoned sparring 'bot called Atom, and together they train the ancient machine to punch and stomp up the rankings of the World Robot Boxing league (WRB).
Real Steel is entertaining, if overlong, and Jackman and youngster Goyo share a winning screen chemistry.
While the movie’s special effects hardware is mightily impressive, combining John Rosengrant's animatronics with metal- crunching digital trickery, John Gatins's script is sadly infected with the sentimentality and cliché viruses.
