Real Steel

Directed by Shawn Levy. Starring Hugh Jackman, Dakota Goyo, Evangeline Lilly, Anthony Mackie, Kevin Durand, Hope Davis, James Rebhorn 12A cert, general release, 127 min

HERE'S A pleasant surprise. As you may have gathered from the publicity material, Real Steelis a science-fiction film starring Hugh Jackman as a washed-up pugilist who manages boxing cyborgs. If Transformersmeets the Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots is your thing, then . . . well, then you're a raving idiot. Happily, Shawn Levy's film turns out to be much more enjoyable than that scenario suggests.

Borrowing shamelessly (I said shamelessly) from Rockyand The Champ, Real Steelflits by on rough charm and mid-level sentimentality. It doesn't stand up to the sadder, less product-placed old Twilight Zoneadaptation of the same Richard Matheson story (featuring Lee Marvin, no less), but few recent family films have straddled age demographics so comfortably.

You could argue that Hugh Jackman is a tad miscast as Charlie, the compromised ex-boxer. The glossy Aussie is nothing if not versatile, but “washed-up” doesn’t quite figure prominently in his repertoire. Still, Jackman exudes such positivity that it proves hard to care.

Ninety-two per cent of American films being about fathers and their sons, the picture duly elects to follow Charlie as, for disreputable reasons, he agrees to take care of his estranged boy (Dakota Goyo) for the summer. Young Max eventually happens upon Atom, a creaky, clanky first-generation robot, and persuades his dad that they can make some money from the obsolete machine.

Well, you can see where this is going. Following a few unexpected upsets, they secure a fairytale bout against the reigning champion. Along the way, father and son gain a touching understanding. How often can we watch the same fight? (Atom is losing. He’s surely a goner. Jeepers, he’s staging an extraordinary comeback.) About five or six times, as it happens. Choreographed by ex-champ Sugar Ray Leonard, the successively more violent bouts demonstrate that, when played by a gifted orchestra, the most familiar songs never seem old or hackneyed. If you resist cheering at the end then you must, like plucky Atom, have copper and steel where others have a heart.