Real Steel
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures | Release Date: October 7, 2011 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
56
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 34 Critic Reviews
Positive:
13
Mixed:
20
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
91
Entertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumOct 5, 2011
Real Steel is directed by "Night at the Museum's" Shawn Levy, who makes good use of his specialized skill in blending people and computer-made imaginary things into one lively, emotionally satisfying story. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicRandy CordovaOct 5, 2011
There's a little "Kramer vs. Kramer" here, a dash of "Transformers" there, and it's all topped with big heap of "Rocky." But it's hard to argue with the results, because, at times, Real Steal is close to a knockout. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChroniclePeter HartlaubOct 6, 2011
If you can get past the ridiculousness of the setup - easy to do, because the posters make it clear this isn't a Woody Allen movie - it's pretty much impossible not to have fun. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeWesley MorrisOct 6, 2011
The movie is corny enough to remind you that boxing rings are square. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie RickeyOct 6, 2011
It is earsplitting, crowd-pleasing, and, no doubt, 'bot-pleasing, too. If you told me I would get emotionally and viscerally involved in two machines punching the hard drives out of each other, I would tell you you were crazy. I would be wrong. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliOct 5, 2011
By the time the two hour running length has expired, it's safe to say that Real Steel comes across as a legitimate crowd-pleaser. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertOct 5, 2011
Real Steel is a real movie. It has characters, it matters who they are, it makes sense of its action, it has a compelling plot. This is the sort of movie, I suspect, young viewers went to the "Transformers" movies looking for. Read full review
75
ObserverRex ReedOct 5, 2011
Like "Moneyball," this is real movie making that packs a solid entertainment punch. Read full review
70
MovielineStephanie ZacharekOct 6, 2011
It goes through all the motions, properly and efficiently, and yet it's missing some core warmth. Watching Real Steel, I kept thinking of Brad Bird's retro-modern cartoon "The Iron Giant," and of how that picture humanized a metal alien so effortlessly. Read full review
70
Boxoffice MagazinePete HammondOct 4, 2011
Although the marketing looks like "Transformers 4," Real Steel is the real deal, a Rocky with robots that ought to have audiences standing up and cheering. Read full review
70
VarietyPeter DebrugeOct 2, 2011
The uncanny thing about Real Steel is just how gripping the fight scenes are; Sugar Ray Leonard served as a consultant to the motion-capture performers responsible for pantomiming the machines' moves. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubScott TobiasOct 5, 2011
Real Steel falls somewhere near the intersection of elation and shame, essentially reworking the Sylvester Stallone arm-wrestling non-classic "Over The Top" for the equally ridiculous sport of android fisticuffs, and mostly getting away with it. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineNick SchagerOct 5, 2011
If familiarity is endemic to this feel-good drama, there's nonetheless also something to be said for competent amalgamation and regurgitation of tired genre tropes. Read full review
60
EmpireJames WhiteOct 10, 2011
Rocky with robots? It's not quite in Balboa's weight class, but Real Steel at least has some heft. There's barely a story beat among the beat-downs that you won't expect, and sometimes the saccharine gets in the way of the spectacle, but on the whole this is enjoyable family entertainment. Read full review
60
SlateForrest WickmanOct 6, 2011
When I was 7 and saw "Over The Top," I saw no irony in its moniker, even during a slow-motion close-up of two battling hands. While Real Steel is similarly ludicrous, I predict it will play like a masterpiece with 7-year-olds. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyOct 6, 2011
As it happens, this recycled reclamation of underdogs saga is neither as bad as it sounds nor quite as good as it could be. Read full review
60
Village VoiceNick PinkertonOct 4, 2011
Based very loosely on a short story by "I Am Legend" author Richard Matheson, Real Steel in fact comes closer to road-bonding movies featuring children and hesitant papas: "Paper Moon" or "Over the Top," say. Read full review
60
Time OutJoshua RothkopfOct 4, 2011
Executive-produced by Steven Spielberg, the movie's special effects are seamless and far more cleanly cut than any of Michael Bay's hash. But the element that lingers longest is a subtle strand - also woven into last week's "Take Shelter" - of recessionary anxiety. Read full review
58
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallOct 5, 2011
Real Steel is sci-fi without the science, and the fiction is strictly 20th century, straight out of Rocky knockoffs. Read full review
50
TimeMary PolsOct 10, 2011
The story remains sadly mired in botdom, which leads to some boredom. It's hard to look away from the ever-dazzling Jackman, but the sight of him hunched over the controls of something akin to a live action video game is not, in the end, much more exciting than the sight of your average teenager hunched over the controls of a Game Boy. Read full review
50
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottOct 7, 2011
When making a film for 10-year-old boys, it doesn't have to be good, necessarily -- just good enough. And that's exactly what Real Steel is: good enough. Read full review
50
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsOct 7, 2011
What it lacks is the human element. Charlie is more of a rat than a rascal, and instead of working hard to build and operate his robots, he's literally going through the motions. Read full review
50
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerOct 7, 2011
They should call this overloud, underwhelming movie "Real Steal." Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyOct 6, 2011
It's a combination that seems ideal for 10-year-old boys who adore violence, and could well be the cornerstone of the next DreamWorks franchise. Read full review
50
USA TodayStaff [Not Credited]Oct 6, 2011
It's an odd blend - a sentimental story in a futuristic world of brutal machine-maneuvered fights. There are some ringside thrills, but it's not a seamless mesh. Read full review
50
The New York TimesStephen HoldenOct 6, 2011
An underdog drama with clanging metal-on-metal action, Real Steel feels scientifically programmed to claw at your heart while its battling robots, which have a semblance of human personality, drum up your adrenaline. That said, I'm not sure that the movie itself has more than a semblance of a heart. Read full review
50
Rolling StonePeter TraversOct 6, 2011
Sugar Ray Leonard helped with the motion-capture, and it shows. Good stuff. But the tear-jerking in Real Steel is as shameless as its product placement. We're being hustled. Read full review
50
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanOct 6, 2011
A slightly soggy tale of father-son bonding, crossed with an action-adventure flick about high-tech battle-bots. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsOct 6, 2011
I suspect a lot of what I found synthetic and sort of galling in Real Steel will work just fine with the target audience. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenOct 5, 2011
Lost's Evangeline Lilly remains lost, however, in this film role as Charlies's too-good-to-be-true romantic interest. Read full review
50
Orlando SentinelRoger MooreOct 5, 2011
Jackman gamely does his best, Levy keeps the kid just shy of insufferable and just this side of kid-appropriate in his behavior and language. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyOct 2, 2011
This punishingly predictable tale will test whether sci-fi action fanboys can stomach having their cherished genre infiltrated by sentimental hokum about a down-on-his-luck dad and his spunky long-lost son. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierOct 7, 2011
In either a stunningly brave or misguided act of meta-absurdity, Real Steel, which is about a boy, his dad and the robot that changes their lives, actually feels as if it were made inside the mind of a kid obsessed with robots. Read full review
38
New York PostKyle SmithOct 7, 2011
Real Steel is to action what the Anthony Weiner habit was to sex: It's so virtual, so distant from the thrill, that you wonder what the point is. Do you really want to pay to watch an actor playing a kid who in turn plays what amounts to a video game? Read full review
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