Real Steel

The title is actually a description of what you need to put in your undies from sitting for 127 minutes in order to watch a movie that, from the first frame, you know how it will end. But end it will. What happens in those 127 minutes? Okay- if you are a 10 year old boy- EVERYTHING- robots boxing, a kid reunites with his long lost dad and becomes his own hero, a pretty girl wears Daisy Duke shorts and no bra at times, and fighting- lots of fighting!  If you are an adult who tripped over your kid's transformers until your feet bled, it's a pleasant, winsome and at times funny movie. It is also the most blatant piece of commercial product placement I have EVER seen! If you get bored, just play "count the products".The final scene takes place in the Bing arena, sponsored by XBOX 720, Pepsi, redbull or whatever the kid is drinking with enough caffeine to kill him, and numerous other products. But you can see that the producers figured this movie might be a dicey sell to the audience, and so they had to sell out while they could. Look, I liked it. I found the kid to be a great little actor. Hugh Jackman acts like he is sleep walking through the mugging machine, and Evangeline Lilly acts like the patient girl who knows Jackman really has a heart of gold-yada. OF COURSE it is lame and you've seen it a thousand times before- it's generic and sappy in parts. But the kid- the kid is great.Oh- and the robot, too. We humans think that anything else that has eyes also can see the world as we do, even if it a newt or a muppet. The robot has a real relationship with the kid-I blame it on the eyes- at least as far as the kid is concerned. So, you've been forewarned. Reread this two or three times and be sure you are signing up for the right movie.