Real Steel - Blu-ray Review

'Having engaged in a rampant bit of child trafficking, Kenton sets about redemption in the time honoured way of building a robot that can hit other robots harder than they can hit him.'

There's a popular perception throughout the world of the Internet that Real Steel is a good film because it's better than the last two Transformers films. The online phrase dictionary need look no further for an excellent definition of the concept 'damning with faint praise'.

Being better than the last two Transformers film is clearly not a state of being which requires a great stretch, but if Real Steel is better than them - and that is still a fact very much open to debate - then it makes a great lurching showpiece of coming over the line in first place; head ducked, diving to make the line, Decepticon right on its heels. Like most of the Transformers films Real Steel is a brainless, soulless mess of poor scripting, awful plotting and thin excuses to stage large pieces of metal hitting each other. That it happens in a ring this time almost makes things worse. There's no variety and the finale is eminently predictably from very early doors.

As appears to always be the case with gigantic CGI creations though, it is the human element of the film which proves the main let down. Every hero has the right to be a horrible person, on the road to redemption but Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) is the most horrible, least redeemed 'hero' we have seen in quite a while. Writer John Gatins appears to think we will merely shrug off the fact that, for at least a third of the film, Kenton's main aim is to secure the sale of his son, Max (Dakota Goyo), to his aunt. That's 'sale' as in, sell. For money. Oh yes and, at one point, he leaves him alone on the edge of a cliff for the night, just after a near death experience.

Rampant bit of child trafficking engaged upon then, Kenton sets about redemption in the time honoured way of building a robot that can hit other robots harder than they can hit him. The film would have you believe that this has suddenly become the coolest pass-time on the planet but the reality - save the final fight, which is admittedly shiny - is more akin to the BBC's ill-fated Robot Wars series; a group of geeks shouting over-enthusiastically at some pieces of metal of suspect structural integrity. Each to their own when it comes to pass-times of choice but its difficult for Real Steel to overcome the 'cool' factor and, too often, we're in an anonymous, desolate location, watching something that doesn't seem to be up to all that much.

Bit parters Kevin Durand and Anthony Mackie are good, Evangeline Lilly's Bailey is notable for being a kind-of properly written female character in a very machismo world, but then gets very little to do, largely in one location. Goyo is occasionally very poor indeed and Jackman's ability to growl out an American accent seems to be going in to decline. A film destined for the scrap heap of countrywide bargain bins.