Real Steel
Real Steel (2011)
★★★ / ★★★★
Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) was addicted to robot gambling which was inopportune, in the least, because he was neck-deep in debt. After his robot was demolished by a raging bull, he was informed that his former girlfriend had passed away and his son, Max (Dakota Goyo), needed an official guardian. Charlie was to appear in court to pick up the boy, but Max’ aunt, Debra (Hope Davis), who married a rich man, wanted to adopt him. For a hundred thousand dollars, the gambler made a deal, unbeknownst to Max and Debra, with the husband: Max was to spend time with his father over the summer but he was to be returned in Debra’s care after their trip to Italy. Written by John Gatins, Dan Gilroy, and Jeremy Leven, “Real Steel” managed to be quite involving as it explored the connection between father and son through robot fighting. The picture was smart in first establishing Charlie as our protagonist on the path to self-destruction. He was a good guy, but he often relied on instincts instead of measured calculation to make a quick buck. On the outside, he seemed to do it for the money. He was a former boxer who saw himself as a failure in that field. I looked at him and considered that perhaps he gambled for the rush. Maybe watching his robot fight was like being in the ring himself. As his machines were eradicated, so were his personal connections. Bailey (Evangeline Lilly), his somewhat girlfriend and the daughter of the man who taught him to box, really needed the money that Charlie burrowed to pay for the gym she managed. This made him so desperate, he didn’t even think twice to sell his son. Charlie and Max were quite opposite but the same in important ways. Meeting for the first time, the son suspected that he’d been sold and asked his father if he, in fact, was. Charlie told the boy the truth but Max, plucky and sarcastic, digested the information with dignity and dealt with it on his own. When presented by bad news, neither shriveled; both saw it as a chance to start anew and to prove everybody wrong. That was the reason why I wanted Charlie and Max to succeed as robot gamblers and as father and son. Notice that I haven’t even discussed the robots. That’s because they were secondary to the human drama that propelled the movie forward, yet necessary as a catharsis for these characters. Max stumbled upon a robot named Atom in a junkyard. It was a sparring robot, designed to take a lot of hits but not actually hit back as effectively. With the help of Charlie’s robots, Ambush and Noisy Boy, that had been destroyed, Max was able to extract necessary pieces from them to make Atom stronger in both offense and defense. Eventually, they won enough fights to gain popularity and be invited to World Robot Boxing Tournament in which they had to face Zeus, the undefeated robot champion. Based on “Steel,” a short story by Richard Matheson, “Real Steel,” directed by Shawn Levy, was ultimately a story of redemption. Our decision to emotionally invest in the characters, if one so chooses, was worthwhile because it wasn’t just about metals clanging against each other like in Michael Bay’s egregious “Transformers” movies. There was something real at stake. That is, a father finding his son and recognizing that he was good enough even though he wasn’t perfect.
The Box
Box, The (2009)
★★ / ★★★★
An unsuspecting couple (Cameron Diaz, James Marsden) from the suburbs in the winter of 1976 received a box with a red button from a man with a deformity (Frank Langella). They were told that if they pressed the button, they would receive a million dollars in cash. However, upon their decision to press the button, someone they didn’t know would die. I’ve read and heard all sorts of frustration about this film and I have to admit I was really excited to see it. I like debate as opposed to just everyone agreeing that something is horrible or a masterpiece. It was a weird movie but definitely not as strange as I thought it would be. I liked its ability to keep me guessing. At first I thought the strange events that were happening were driven by some sort of a government conspiracy or some sort of an alien life form. But as it went on, I started wondering if the happenings were really happening. It was like watching “The Twilight Zone;” the more unbelievable the story became, the more I wanted to know what was really going on. Unlike most people, I didn’t feel frustration with it. I learned to embrace its enigmatic nature because I rooted for the couple to succeed. The primary moral question was always at the forefront for me. Admittedly, I would have made the same decision they chose (yes, they did press the red button–which is not a spoiler because if they didn’t press the button, there would be no movie) because they really needed the money. However, as much as I enjoyed watching the strange happenings unfold–like people becoming sort of possessed and having unexplainable nosebleeds (think “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”)–the picture desperately needed focus. While I was able to follow it with the best of my abilities, when I looked at the big picture, it was a bit confusing and some scenes needed to be trimmed off. In a way, it became redundant as it went on and the movie probably should have only been approximately an hour and twenty minutes. Nevertheless, despite the mediocre rating, I’m willing to give it a slight recommendation because it entertained me and it worked as a hybrid between science fiction and a paranoid thriller. “The Box,” based on a short story “Button, Button” by Richard Matheson and directed by Richard Kelly, kept the mystery alive throughout because of some nice twists. It was not as focused and as tight as I would have liked but it definitely had the potential to be really good.
