Touchstone Pictures, DreamWorks SKG, 21 Laps Entertainment
Hugh Jackman, Evangeline Lilly, Kevin Durand, Anthony Mackie, Hope Davis, Dakota Goyo, James Rebhorn, Karl Yune, Olga Fonda, Marco Ruggeri
In the world of 2020 where real human boxers have been replaced by fighting robots, Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) is a washed up boxer who tried to make the move to the robot boxing world, but hasn’t had much luck. Way over his head in debt, and in need of some quick bucks, he puts his only possession, his robot, up against a 2000 pound bull in a fight to the death. Unfortunately he brings his robot back in pieces. Then an 11 year old boy turns up who the courts claim is Charlie’s son Max (Dakota Goyo), and Charlie figures out a way to “sell” Charlie to get back into the robot game.
This is “Rocky” meets “Transformers”! This is an interesting concept for a film, fighting robots! The robots have a personality. When I was a kid we spent a lot of Saturdays on “Rock ’em Sock ’em Robots!
The star of this film is little Dakota Goyo. He is really a good actor. This kid has a ton of talent. Hugh Jackman is also very good playing the “Han Solo” type of character who’s lovable hero who’s always getting himself in trouble, mostly due to his own pride. There are some other good characters too. Evangeline Lilly plays Bailey Tallet, owner of her father’s gym where Charlie trains and repairs his robot. She’s a caring and faithful friend who’s running out of patience on Charlie’s shenanigans. The fighting sequences are AWESOME. Every bit as good as other great “human” boxing movies. There’s a whole lot of action and suspense the locations and seedy characters at the fighting arenas in the “lower class” unlicensed fighting locations remind me of the cockfighting pits in the Philippines, whereas the high glitz and glamour of the official WRF championship fight was better than a Mandalay Bay Las Vegas fight!
All in all it’s a long movie, a little over 2 hours, but it’s so interesting you hardly notice. This is really a great adventure movie with a great David and Goliath story that is fun for all ages. The relationship between Charlie and Max is really endearing. This is a very good film.
EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog
