I Was Once Like You Are Now

REAL STEEL (2011)

I knew this would be a good movie when I read the name Richard Matheson in the opening credits. (Spielberg and Zemeckis too) He wrote the original story "Steel" on which Real Steel is very loosely based. If you don't know who this science-fiction legend is, look him up. Read some of his stuff. Two of my favorite movie adaptations of his stories are Steven Spielberg's own Duel (1971) and The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957). He even wrote I Am Legend which has been made into better movies twice before the Will Smith one. "Steel" has been made into a Twilight Zone episode I was told, which I haven't seen. Although I have seen "Nightmare at 20, 000 feet", written by Matheson as well, one of the most iconic Twilight Zone episodes. Even Ace Ventura couldn't resist that one.

Real Steel has more to do with Steven Spielberg than with Richard Matheson, to be honest. The story is reworked to include the absent father and the lonely child finding a friend in a not so human yet human figure. Two Spielbergian trademarks. The two reasons why I love Spielberg. Although, the two more pertinent reasons why this film really scores is the child actor Dakota Goyo who plays Max, and Atom, the robot. Max is a wonderful character. He has the right amount of innocence, brains and curiosity that I believe every child must have. On screen, I like watching children who can think and are not just there to look cute. He is what makes this film so refreshing, familiar and involving. Hugh Jackman acts just like a star should in a commercial Hollywood film. Evangeline Lily does what a woman should in a film like this. (not so much perhaps)

I was surprised by how this film started out just like any other (not story-wise) and kept getting better and better. The father and son drama does not go into false sentimentality like a certain Pursuit of Happyness (a film I couldn't love at all, despite a great performance). This is an underdog story done right, the kind that wins me over. To be honest, I liked this film more than I liked The Fighter (2010), which I didn't really like at all. There was something fake about that one. That something I find existing here. Of course, I'm not the one giving out Academy Award nominations for Best Picture. But this is the kind of film that entertains me and makes me feel at the same time. Makes me root for the characters. (Three of them, to be precise). It is masculine but not daft. This is the kind of guy movie I like. Not The Expendables (2010). Where there was only steel and nothing real at all.

Let commercial Hollywood be like this, dear God. Not like Transformers (the sequels). God here is Steven Spielberg. Of course.

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