It's guest-blogger day, courtesy of my grad school friend (and
Hugh Jackman obsessive) Lisa:
You know of my deep and passionate love for Hugh Jackman, so it should come as no surprise to you that I’d go to see him reading the phone book. I would even have gone to see him in the film that never made it to theaters (or even to DVD), in which he plays a dairy farmer, but I seem to have been spared that ordeal.
I’m no fan of boxing, but as it turns out,
Real Steel is actually pretty decent. Yes, it’s an odd combination of
Rocky,
Field of Dreams, and other father-son bonding movies, and
Transformers (though I haven’t actually seen that last one). But Atom, the “junkyard dog” of a robot that Charlie (Jackman) and Max (an adorable kid named
Dakota Goyo—and if that isn’t a great stage name, I don’t know what is) restore and train to fight in this near-future’s version of boxing, reminded me of
Wall•E, whose mechanical eyes managed to convey powerful human emotion.
Jackman gets to show off his boxing prowess as he trains Atom and when he “shadow boxes” with him during the final match. His moves are real—he started boxing four years ago, and in preparation for this film even trained with Sugar Ray Leonard. Jackman is in magnificent shape—believable shape, not Wolverine super-hyper-real comic book shape. Atom’s surprising and unlikely success in the ring serves as a catalyst for Charlie’s renewed confidence in his skill as a boxer, the growing affection between son and long-lost father, and rekindled love between Charlie and Bailey, whose father taught Charlie to box.
Corny? You bet. But don’t tell me you aren’t cheering for Atom to hold his own against the slicker, bigger, badder, joy-stick-operated Zeus, and that you’re not Rocky-moved when father, son, and robot raise their arms in victory at the end.
Tragic that the flick w/ Hugh as dairy farmer is unavailable, but thanks for this. It's showing downtown, so . . . nah, why even pretend?
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