10 Thoughts on Real Steel

What: Real Steel, starring Hugh Jackman, Dakota Goyo & EvangelineLily
Who with: Lola
When: Oct. 16, 9:30pm
Where: Greenhills Theater Cinema 2, 2nd Row
Why: Birthday treat

*SPOILERS*

1. Hugh Jackman was miscast in this movie (I would've gone w/ Mark Wahlberg, but another boxing-related movie was probably too soon), and if he was making any effort to make his character Charlie Kenton likable (or intelligent), it wasn't showing.  Not only was the way he treated his kid early in the film criminal, but apparently the way to win an argument w/ him was to just keep saying the opposite of what he says 'til he relents.
2. Speaking of the kid, not only did Dakota Goyo act circles around Jackman, but his name sounds even more Asian than the only Asian actor in the film, Karl Yune.
3. Coinkidink Trivia: Kevin Durand plays Ricky, who said he beat Charlie in an earlier fight.  If you want to see said fight, watch X-Men Origins: Wolverine, because Kevin Durand was there was Fred Dukes, aka The Blob, who knocked down Jackman's Logan/Wolverine in a boxing ring!  (Or just click here.)
4. Plots holes, wha-huh? moments and dropped story elements galore.  "This inanimate robot arm saved my life, so I'll spend all night digging it up from a muddy grave.  What's that? It still works and it's more intuitive that the newer model boxing robots? Then what was it doing in a scrapyard w/ the lousy security that enabled to easily escape from it?  Also, my biological dad is behaving like a complete dick, so of course I'll help him earn money!  It's the year 2020, when Rich Old Guys still wear cravats like it's the 70s, and while we almost managed to achieve artificial intelligence w/ robots, paper money is still the favored medium of payment!"  Also, after establishing that Evangeline Lily's character Bailey was hard up for cash, one wonders how she managed to get a ringside seat to a major boxing match, and one that was so arranged so quickly (even human boxing matches need months of prep time) that it coincided w/ Charley promising (Aunt) Debra that he only needed Max for one night.
5. Atom, Wall-E called, and he wants his eyes back.
6. I can understand how in terms of hardware, Atom would be more durable (my old Nokia 3100 could take a beating better than my 6300) and take the punches, but he's still relying of old processing software.  In short he had strength, not speed.  Almost all his opponents were stronger and faster, but still managed to get beat because Atomic was responding to human synapses by remote control.  That would be like the humans beating Watson the supercomputer on Jeopardy! without just smashing his LCD screen w/ a baseball bat.
7. Once again American (by way of Australian actor) know-how and hands on (so to speak) hard work beats foreign technology, specifically uppity Angry Asian who probably couldn't box outside of a Wii Sports game.
8. The dialogue was so repetitive and hackneyed it must have been written on Microsoft Cliche 2.0.  And you could tell they were running out of things to say because instead of fleshing out the story in the climactic 5-round boxing match they edited it as a montage.
9. I hope Manny Pacquio had the phrase "The People's Champion" trademarked.  Ditto for FPJ's family on the former's "machine gun" style punching technique, because both are heard and featured in this film.
10. Definitely a kid's (or preteen's) movie.  I was half expecting it to be entitled Disney's Real Steel.