The underdog story is one that will continue to light up the big screen for a number of reasons, mostly thought because we always want to see the top dog (who’s usually now become full of himself) get some sort of reality check. Whether the film be called Rocky, The Fighter, Cinderella Man or even Major League we want to cheer on the little guy.
So when we see a world of robotic boxing matches controlled by controllers not that less complicated than the video game controllers we’re starting to use now who is there to cheer for? Isn’t everyone on a pretty much level playing field? The human factor has been removed and so it’s just mindless maiming of watching the equivalent of a dummy crash test over and over again with two guys pounding buttons on the side of the ring shouting either at the controller or against it.
However, this film does exactly what we need for a regular underdog story, it introduces to human element. With Charlie (Hugh Jackman) being the reckless out of luck boxer that’s doing this robot thing, and not very well, takes on his now motherless son, Max (Dakota Goyo), for the summer he’s forced to bond with his son and the son takes a liking to a new perspective of a “sport” that he’s apparently loved for a long while. One night while scavenging, illegally, in a scrap yard for parts to build a new bot Max comes upon a tough old sparring bot that eventually becomes the talk of the robot boxing community with Charlie’s boxing sense and Max’s belief and this becomes the complete catalyst of the story of the film and how Max and Charlie start to bond like a real father and son (sort of).
So you’re reading this and wondering when the “human” element is introduced? It’s pretty much all in that new bot, Atom. It’s built in “shadow” function allows it to learn by example and after eventually being taught all the right things from Charlie – a former profession boxer – it’s effectiveness in the ring is the equivalent of any story you’ll hear of Ali vs. Foreman or Lewis vs. Tyson. It becomes that fighter that can stand its own and thanks to Charlie knows how to see the patterns and dominate it’s opposition because they’re predictable machines as opposed to what we have today being dynamic human beings making decisions based on their surroundings rather than just following commands and without question.
With that said this does not make this a good film. There’re so many aspects of this film that makes you sit and stare with an eye of annoyance. I look at scenes of Max and Atom dancing in tandem just so can have something cool to look at and of course children are cute, apparently. The film’s final battle, when Charlie is forced to control Atom via his shadow function and literally become conduit for Charlie’s subdued talent that he hasn’t had to call on for what we can imagine must be more than a decade, I don’t think we ever are told what year this film is set in. You can see the look on his face as he starts to remember what it was like to be in the ring and to have to decide a fight being one of the two of you being left on the canvas.
Whatever I say, at the end of the day the film delivers on its overall promise of entertainment and for that you can’t fault it. While I did hope that I would get a little bit more Anthony Mackie the film doesn’t misuse his ability to emphasize a character in every scene that he gets a chance to show off.