Real Steel (2011)
by Shawn Levy, produced by Steven Spielberg
starring Hugh Jackman, Dakota Goyo, Evangeline Lilly, Kevin Durand, etc
I give it 7.5/10, especially for the entertainment value.
Artistically, this film has nothing special. It is like Transformers, laden with product placements, but still somewhat at appropriate level, you can see International Harvester, Hewlett-Packard, Virgin America, etc. The movie is set in not too distant future where robot do the fighting instead of human. The story is from the viewpoint of a loser trying to regain his composure. It is quite attention-grabbing, some of the scenes we remember from Rocky 4, and with some family-friendly story, but still not being too smartass or preachy.
The theme is pretty much game-like. You got several stages, arena, tournaments, fights, robots, basically a great story for video game tie-ins. The setting is what people usually call "Americana," or typical American backdrop, from rural rodeo country to city with blinding lights, and a long-long-long route 66-like route in between. A well deserved 8 for me, but not for critics.
This movie had my recommendation because:
Steven Spielberg= +1
success-proven plot development (classic thing, like Rocky)= +2
misplaced product placement= -0.5
cheesy villains= -1
believability of the story= +1
In Time (2011)
by Andrew Niccol
starring Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried, Cillian Murphy
I give it 6/10
Do you like cult movies with dystopia themes? Do you remember Kurt Wimmer's Equlibrium (2002)? You like Citizen Kane (1941)? V for Vendetta (2005)? Well, they have some innuendos in it, but still the overall idea is about breaking the system right?
Not when it involves young guys, innuendos about 1960s American car, strip poker, and cheesy elites. The very basic idea of the movie is: replace money with time as the main commodity. The human now lives in time, you have body clock (not circadian rhythm), that will count your time until you die. Everyone is paid in time. TBH, the movie is pretty much engaging (if you don't care about why the hell is this and that), however, we would never expect some punching machine operator to be able to do some sort of punch to the fist and gunning down gangster business. Even Violet (Milla Jovovich) in Ultraviolet (2006) had her explanations about where the heck her badass-ness come from.
But this is populist movie: We don't care, but one of us common day loser can suddenly say fuck you to some of us and decided to screw the whole system. There are some elites that controls them all (we never know how and we don't care), instead of deciding who is eating shit, now they decide who lives longer, and who lives forever. So they keep increasing price (the time cost, thus shortening your life, again we don't care about how the hell). Justin Timberlake is your Hugo Weaving-badass guy and he is there to dubiously save the day. The plot begins when the matter goes personal.
A touch of cult movie-like= +1
Hot scenes with Amanda Seyfried= +2
Incoherent plot= -1
Sensibility= -1