226. Real Steel

Title: Real Steel
Genre: Drama, Action, Sci-Fi
Year: 2011

Summary: In 2020, human boxers have been replaced by robots. Charlie Kenton, a former boxer, owns the robot Ambush. He enters his fighter in unsanctioned matches and exhibition fights. At a county fair, Ambush is destroyed by a bull belonging to promoter Ricky, when Charlie fails to notice the bull advancing when he was flirting with a pretty woman in the crowd after he thought he had downed the bull. Having made a bet that Ambush would win, Charlie now owes Ricky $20,000, money he doesn't have, so Charlie has to run away.

Charlie is told his ex-girlfriend has died, and that he must attend a hearing about the future of his son Max. Max's wealthy aunt Debra and her husband Marvin want full custody, which Charlie gives them after Marvin agrees to pay him $100,000, half in advance, on the condition that Charlie takes Max for three months while the couple are away on a second anniversary.

Charlie and Max meet Bailey Tallet, a friend of Charlie's who runs her dad's boxing gym, Charlie's old coach. Charlie buys a secondhand World Robot Boxing league (WRB) robot, the once-famous Noisy Boy and arranges for it to fight the illegal circuit's champion, Midas. The fight starts well for Charlie, but due to both his inexperience with Noisy Boy's controls and his own overconfidence, Charlie ends up losing control of Noisy Boy and Midas destroys it.

Charlie breaks into a junkyard with Max to steal scraps that he can use to build a new robot. Max falls over a ledge, where he is saved by getting snagged on the arm of a buried robot. After Charlie pulls Max up, Max digs out the entire robot and finds his branding, Atom. Charlie takes it back to Bailey's gym to overhaul it. They discover Atom is an obsolete Generation-2 sparring bot from 2014. Atom was designed to sustain massive damage. Atom also has a "shadow function" which allows him to follow or copy human movement. Max insists and Charlie agrees since he needs the money, on having Atom fight an unsanctioned match against the robot Metro. Atom wins, earning back some of Charlie's money.

Max later upgrades Atom to take vocal commands, using parts from Charlie's old robots, and convinces Charlie to train Atom. Atom's later string of wins attracts the WRB's attention, and they offer Atom a professional fight against the robot Twin Cities. Charlie accepts and Atom wins again, thanks to Charlie's boxing experience allowing him to take advantage of a small tell in Twin Cities' punch. Reveling in the attention, Max tries to get back at the wealthy Farra Lemkova who made fun of Atom by challenging WRB champion Zeus who was designed by genius Tak Mashido under her sponsorship.

Ricky and two henchmen corner Charlie after the fight, giving him a beating and stealing his money. Charlie decides to return Max to his aunt, saying that is for the best, but an angry Max tells him that the only thing that he wanted was for Charlie to fight for him. Charlie refuses Marvin's money. He later visits Bailey, who convinces him to fight for his son. He then goes to Debra's house, apologizes to Max and convinces Debra to allow Max to come with him for the fight against Zeus.

In the night of the fight against Zeus, everyone is here, including Max's aunt and uncle, Bailey and Ricky. Ricky bets $100,000 that Atom would not last the first round against Zeus. Things start badly for Atom, but the robot manages to recover. Ricky tries to slip away, but is cornered by the bookie and his colleagues. In the following rounds, Atom fights back, landing several good punches on the champion. In the fourth round of the five-round match, Atom's voice-activated controls are damaged, and Atom must fight in shadow mode, copying Charlie's moves. Zeus, now controlled manually by the furious Mashido, tries to overpower Atom, running low on power and becoming sluggish. The fight swings in Atom's favor as he overwhelms the weakened Zeus, even knocking the champion down, but Atom is unable to win before the fight ends. The judges declare Zeus the winner on points, but the near-defeat leaves the Zeus team humiliated with the people booing them. The people cheer for Atom, who is labelled the "People's Champion" as Charlie and Max celebrate their success together as father and son.