When I read on a movie news site I frequent that Shawn Levy was making a movie about robot boxers starring Hugh Jackman, I didn't mark the date on my calendar or do much of anything other than briefly wonder why executive producer Steven Spielberg didn't just direct the film himself and click on the next article. Having sat through several of his films, including two middling Night at the Museum movies and the forgettable Date Night, I was pretty sure that a movie which looked, in its trailers, like a cross between Rocky and the Transformers, was not going to change my opinion of Levy's talent. When the movie came out, though, reviews seemed to suggest it was something my kids might enjoy, the digital violence notwithstanding, and so I took my kids to see it.
I can readily admit: I was pleasantly surprised.
Jackman plays Charlie Kenton, a down-on-his-luck ex-boxer who, since human boxing has been replaced with robot boxing, has been touring the country with his robot boxers. The thing is, Charlie doesn't appear to be very good at what he does, and is as a result rather deep in debt, a situation which gets compounded when his latest charge, a robot he has named Ambush, is destroyed by a bull at a rodeo, leaving him even deeper in debt and without a robot.
Charlie then receives notice that his ex-girlfriend has died, leaving him the sole remaining parent of his eleven-year-old son Max (Dakota Goyo). Charlie wants nothing to do with the boy, but during the custody hearing for Max, during which he is set to sign over custody of Max to his late ex-girlfriend's wealthy sister Debra (Hope Davis) he sees an opportunity to get himself back in the robot-boxing business. During a recess in the trial he makes a deal with Debra's husband Marvin by threatening to sign Max over to the state unless he gets paid $100,000.00. To make it look credible that Charlie is not ready to let Max go, he is to spend the summer with him.
Even though Max, of course, hates Charlie, it turns out he's very much a fan of robot boxing himself, and he ends up twisting his dad's arm into taking him along for his next fight. When Charlie sneaks into a scrapyard for parts, Max stumbles on an old sparring robot which he cleans up. After he pleads with Charlie to get the robot, named Atom, a match, Charlie relents, and to his surprise, the robot actually wins the match.
So begins an underdog story in which father and son bond, the little guy stands up to the big guy and scene after glorious scene of meticulously-rendered, robot-on-robot carnage is unleashed, albeit this time in the confines of a boxing ring rather than the urban landscapes the Transformers are used to demolishing.
The movie is loaded with one boxing/underdog cliche after another, but what impresses about it is how surprisingly sincere the performances feel. Jackman and Goyo carry the movie here, and truth be told if their acting was anything less than rock-solid it could all have gone so very wrong. I doubt they'll be handing out any awards for the performances here, but to my mind full credit goes to a couple of actors who transcended the material. Oh, and I found the touch of having Max dance with Atom "shadowing" him really fun.
Another thing that the filmmakers got note-perfect here was the blend of computer generated imagery (CGI) and actual animatronic robots. Although the robots are not actual characters here the way they are in the Transformers movies, the boxing is what drives the film forward, and therefore the steps taken to ensure an authentic boxing experience, from getting the legendary Sugar Ray Leonard to choreograph the fights to motion capture to the incredibly slick CGI work of known VFX vendor Digital Domain, were just what the film needed to keep things moving along briskly. And what I really liked about these robots, as opposed to the ones in the Transformers movies, was that they really looked like they could take a hit.
High-tech wizardry notwithstanding, though, the film actually has a distinct 80s feel considering how liberally it has borrowed story elements from movies of that time like the Rocky films and another Stallone vehicle, Over the Top. Maybe it's with this in mind that composer Danny Elfman has composed a theme that sounds like it was taken right out of the 80s. It may not be Elfman's best work, but it's pretty catchy just the same.
I'm not about to sing Levy's praises, or even those of the rest of the crew here; the direction and script left quite a bit to be desired, and it struck me that this was not the kind of movie that would hold up to repeat viewings considering the holes in the plot. If nothing else, though I really have to credit Levy with getting the best out of his actors, both actual and virtual.
This is worth a look for sure.
Rating: 3.5/5
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