I'm not clear how Real Steel has neither heart nor humor considering it's trying desperately to have both. Attempting to stack the deck with a down on his luck kid and parental bonding, Shawn Levy has no clue how to make his film in any way relatable. Headache-inducingly loud and garish, the fight scenes are so predictable there's really no way to derive pleasure from them. The script heaps on clichés so steadily that most scenes collapse from their top-heaviness. We're offered only the stupidest of surprises like a robot dance routine.
The acting is among the worst I've ever seen in film with this kind of budget. Dakota Goyo is the most awful child actor to come along since Jake Lloyd in The Phantom Menace. Evangeline Lilly is so humiliatingly amateurish you'd think she wandered out of a community theater. To his credit, Hugh Jackman is at least a certifiable leading man. His too brief shirtless scene is the only time there's any energy eminating from the screen.
The Oscar-nominated visual effects are okay, but truly nothing special. Motion capture and robot effects are common and Real Steel offers nothing in the way of newness.
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