If you were to tell me that the generations-old children’s game Rock ‘Em Sock ‘M Robots would be turned into a movie one day and that that movie would actually be fun to watch, I wouldn’t believe you.  But here we are in 2011 and Hugh Jackman has teamed up with director Shawn Levy to create a fun, family movie about giant robots that beat on each other till they piss oil and it’s very effective as entertainment…but there might be a sinister reason why.

Shawn Levy is the director behind some truly awful films that make lots of money.  He directed Date Night, Cheaper by the Dozen and Just Married.  But he’s also the guy that made the Night at the Museum movies which were shockingly funny and awesome!  So does a higher budget and bigger FX make Levy a better director?  Apparently so.

It probably didn’t hurt that he has two coaches in his corner named Steven Speilberg and Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump, Back to the Future series) as two out of the WHOPPING 12 Producers on Real Steel.  Seeing their names in the opening credits gave me hope that this wouldn’t be rusty crap and I was right.  The film is brightly colored and slickly put together.  It’s also edgy enough that it won’t lose older teens but innocent enough that tweens will dig it too.  The CGI FX are top notch and although they may not be as plentiful and bloated as Transformers, it’s the subtlety  that makes them seem so much more impressive.  I also appreciate that not all the robots in the film are the work of Hollywood computers.  Yes, they went old school in some scenes and actually used giant puppets.

One of the other biggest surprises of the film was in its childhood lead, the 12-year-old Dakota Goyo (Thor), who blew me away with his performance.  Not only does he have the energetic smart-ass down cold, but taps into his inner daddy issues convincingly well too.  Oh yeah, this isn’t just a popcorn-chomping action movie; there’s a chance you may shed a tear or two.  It depends on whether or not you buy into Jackman’s completely unlikable lowlife father character deserving any of your sympathy by the end.

But not so fast…

There’s one thing about Real Steel that needs to be said and that’s because it might be downright illegal.  The script, which was penned by John Gatins (Coach Carter, Hardballs), was highway robbery.  You may feel yourself enjoying Real Steel to the fullest but get a vague sense that you’ve seen this before.  That’s because you have.  It was called Rocky and it won Best Picture in 1976.  I know you’re thinking that it’s easy to compare every boxing movie to Rocky.  That’s not what I’m talking about.  Real Steel is SO MUCH like Rocky that I’m shocked it’s legal.  Aside from the family drama, Real Steel is about a small, junkie robot that no one believes in getting a shot at the title because of a publicity stunt.  And that’s not all.  The champion that he has to fight is a big, black, strong robot named Zeus.  In case you forgot, in Rocky the small, junkie boxer gets a shot at the title against a big, black, strong champion named…wait for it…Apollo.  Same story just switching the character’s name from Roman to Greek.  I won’t spoil the ending for you, but let’s just say that that’s not where the stealing…er….I mean similarities run out.

So what am I trying to say?  How about this – if you’ve never seen Rocky, you may think that Real Steel is a great, emotional, well-made family boxing movie that will win your heart.  If you have seen Rocky, you’ll still feel that way but you will have trouble getting past the blatant ripoff.  That’s why I have to give this film two grades.  One, overlooking the copyright infringement, which many people (sadly) won’t care about; and Two, taking that into consideration.  Either way it’s a fun, entertaining movie…because you’ve probably already seen it.

Real Steel  (Rated PG-13)
Gavin Grade: B+ and D+

If you haven’t seen this movie by the time it came out in theaters to the public, you weren’t paying attention for a free advanced screening.  The studio putting out this family drama that deals with Mixed Martial Arts fighting, played it so often for so many people that they came across desperate and needy.  They needed it to have a huge fan base before it even came out because MMA fighting is so niche that unless there was a buzz about it, only those fans would see it.  It built up that buzz but I’m not sure why.

The trailer for this film gives away 95% of the movie so if you didn’t see it, you’re ahead of the game.  A colossal advertising mistake on the part of the studio.  Another mistake in the advertising for Warrior was promoting that director Gavin O’Connor was the same guy responsible for Miracle, the 2004 movie about one of the most exciting sporting events ever (the US Olympic Hockey team beating the Russians) that was done with the quality of a made-for-TV movie; a true disastrous cinematic misstep.  It now appears that O’Connor has another misstep under his belt.

He tried so hard to go gritty with Warrior.  It’s dimly lit, it’s filled with seedy locations and about a sport that’s still a little taboo in the mainstream of America.  However it does it in a PG-13 filter which might be the biggest mistake made.  These characters are deeply troubled, angry and come from backgrounds that would lend a filthy vocabulary to realism.  Not only is that void from the film but so is BLOOD!  Seriously?!  You have one of the most violent sports on the planet and you don’t show any blood?!  How are we suppose to feel the gravity of each epic battle these guys fight in the octagon if, at the end of it, they barely have a bruise?  That’s one of the aspects of what made Rocky so good; a film which this will get unfairly compared to this a lot.  Don’t believe the hype…it’s FAR from Rocky.  But at the end of Rocky we can see the abuse his body and face took.  Christ, we even see Rocky’s eyelid get sliced open in an attempt to keep the fight going!  Make it realistic or don’t make it at all.

The silver lining for Warrior is the acting.  It stars Tom Hardy (Dark Knight Rises, Inception), Joel Edgerton (Star Wars prequels, Animal Kingdom) and Nick Nolte (Tropic Thunder, Cape Fear).  Nolte gives us one of his best performances as their heavily damaged father fighting for his redemption in his sons’ eyes.  His performance is heart-breaking and tragic and exactly what Oscar nominations are made of.  He would totally deserve the statue as of right now.  Hardy and Edgerton give great performances too.  Hardy has all the silent, steely resolve of a young Marlon Brando.  Sadly the script doesn’t give either a decent shot at having a moment that shows it off.

Sure there is an impressive level of attention that was paid to the sport and getting techniques just right.  I appreciate that.  The moves are real and the MMA cameos are plentiful.  But that only impresses me so much.  At the end of the day, you still need to tell a story that is told in a compelling way.  Warrior doesn’t really do that.  The last 20 minutes of the movie is epic and exciting.  It builds to a climax that makes it hard to maintain a dry eye or avoided goosebumps.  But the first two hours (yes this movie is almost two-and-a-half hours long) is slow, choppy and plodding.  I give credit to those that make it to the end; they’re the real warriors…because they fought to stay awake.

Warrior  (Rated PG-13)
Gavin Grade: B-

Hold on one second.  I’m still tearing up, let me wipe them away.  It’s hard to write a review for the last Harry Potter movie objectively, especially since I’m sitting here wearing my “9 3/4″ hat I got at the screening!  In a word though…Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2 is PERFECT!

I’m a huge Potter fan and let’s be honest, you’re not even considering seeing this if you’re not.  This is the eighth installment of the most lucrative film series of all time, and it’s also (tear) the last.  Harry Potter blessed us with the first movie ten years ago and it’s been part of our lives ever since.  In the final installment, however, the s**t hits the fan and we’re presented with the darkest, most dramatic, most tear-jerking, well-done film in the series.

Splitting the Deathly Hallows book into two movies was brilliant on Warner Bros. part.  The first one grossed over a billion dollars, so why have one billon dollar movie when you could have two?  But not only was it done for greed, but it was also done to give the fans the proper send off they wanted and that the books deserved.  Director David Yates, who’s done the last three films, reaches his zenith by pushing the limits of what a Potter fan can handle as far as adult content.  The film picks up exactly where the last one left off and within 40 minutes of the slightly over two hour runtime, the film is balls-to-the-wall action.  It’s a nice change considering that Deathly Hallows part 1 dragged on (as it does in the book) to the point of exhaustion.

What impressed me more than anything was the cast.  In this final film, we get the performances from everyone that we’ve been longing to see.  All the kids finally proved why they were cast in those roles to begin with and all three have moments in the film where they’re given the spotlight to really prove they have dramatic chops.  However, for me, stealing the show is Alan Rickman (Dogma, Galaxy Quest), who plays Snape.  I won’t give anything away to the Muggles who haven’t read the book, but we find out his entire past in a montage that lasts an emotionally exhausting 6 minutes that doesn’t leave a dry eye in the theater.  It makes me wonder if it’s too early to whisper “Best Supporting Actor?” to anyone that would listen.

That makes me wonder a final point about this.  When the Lord of the Rings trilogy ended, the Academy did the sensible thing and waited for it to conclude and then crapped Oscars all over it.  Will they be smart enough to do it here?  Do I think Deathly Hallows part 2 is good enough to earn Oscars on its own?  Yes I do.  But should it be symbolically showered with little gold men for the accomplishments the series achieved in taking a Chris Columbus (Home Alone) directed children’s film all the way to the gory, action and tears soaked crescendo and earning the tens of billions of dollars along the way?  I believe that too.  Now it’s up to them.  They should do the sensible thing and show their gratitude like the rest of us and say “Thanks for the last decade of our lives, Harry.”

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2 (Rated PG-13)
Gavin Grade: A+

Earlier in the year, when Let Me In came out, I asked in the review, “Should a movie that’s a remake of another film be eligible for the Oscar for Best Picture?”  It’s a tough question to answer.  Once again, that question needs to be asked and this time more seriously because True Grit is amazing!  However, it’s not really a remake as it is a different vision of the book.  Full disclosure however, I’m a HUGE fan of the Coen Brothers.  They’re the writer/director/producing team behind movies like Raising Arizona, No Country for Old Men, Fargo, and my favorite of theirs and the best comedy of all-time (in my opinion) The Big Lebowski.  What excited me the most about True Grit was Oscar-winner Jeff Bridges re-teaming with the Coens for the first time since The Big Lebowski and on the heels of winning Best Actor last year for Crazy Heart.  The Coens are arguably the best filmmakers out there.  Their films are shining examples of every aspect needed to make a movie.  They’ve mastered suspense, comedy and drama all while making their films arty yet commercial.  With True Grit, which is based on the novel by Charles Portis and was already made into a movie in 1969 that won John Wayne his only Oscar, they are just as impressive as ever.  The Coens do everything perfectly but the one they excel at above the rest is writing a script.  They wield dialogue like no other writer out there…yes, that means Quentin Tarantino too!  And what’s so incredible about Bridges performance in True Grit as “Rooster” Cogburn is that he manages to mumble and slur his way through the art of their words just enough that  you can still appreciate what he’s saying and still doing it justice.  Amazing!  Besides adding Matt Damon to their repertoire of Oscar-winners that work with them, the Coens added a 14-year-old unknown Hailee Steinfeld.  She not only holds her own in scenes with Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon under the instructions of The Coens (I couldn’t be more jealous), but she’s amazing at it too!  Don’t be surprised if she gets an Oscar nomination herself.  Don’t go into this movie expecting the big-balled, gunslinger action movie that Westerns notoriously are.  The Coen’s vision of True Grit is full of complex characters that are filled with grey and not black and white.  There are no true villains in this, nor are there true heroes.  The sense of the human condition is something that The Coens seem to know so well, they can evoke it into all the characters they create.  That aspect of it may turn some of you away from the film.  The lack of a true climax or big action might be unsettling, but just like the masterful No Country for Old Men, this movie will get better and better the more  you watch it and make you think about it long after it’s over.
True Grit  (Rated R)
Gavin Grade: A-

I don’t know why everyone craps all over Ben Affleck.  I know he dated Jennifer Lopez and made some awful movies, but the guy is pretty talented.  Especially after making The Town, where he joins the ranks of masters like Orson Wells in the respect that he Produced, Wrote, Stared in and Directed this film.  Here’s the kicker too – it’s great!  The Town was a movie that seemed like another rip off of Martin Scorsese’s The Departed, but really it’s a rip off of the 1995 crime drama Heat.  Both films are about what happens when a criminal lets his guard down and falls in love.  I revere Heat and consider it one of the best crime dramas of all time.  It’s better than The Town in some aspects.  That being said though, there are some things that The Town did better too (gasp!)  Both have stellar casts.  Heat had Robert DeNiro and his partner in crime, Val Kilmer, being chased by cop, Al Pacino.  The Town has Ben Affleck and his partner in crime played by Oscar-nominated Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker) being chased by FBI agent, John Hamm (Mad Men, 30 Rock).  Affleck writes a great sense of who these characters are and how they’re a violent product of their crummy Boston environment.  He crafts the dialogue well and it’s always refreshing to hear him wield a Boston accent.  The interplay between the characters is done well and suspenseful at times, although it’s not nearly done as well as Heat did.  But in The Town’s defense, they achieved a near comparable level of quality in half the time that Heat did, which feels longer than the 3 hour run time it has.  The one thing that The Town has over Heat though is the action sequences that are pretty epic in scope.  The climax of the film is a shoot out in the bowels of Fenway Park, which I would imagine is a wet dream for anyone who loves Boston as much as they love crime.  Affleck flexes his directoral muscle in this.  His first attempt, Gone Baby Gone, was excellent but pulled back in the aggression of the scale.  The Town doesn’t pull punches and shows his skill as someone who’s capable of capturing action scenes on film just as well as he captures human drama.  If this is a sign of what is to come from Ben, I think we can almost forgive him for Gigli…and move on from The Summer of Benifer.
The Town (Rated R)
Gavin Grade: A

The last time the legend of Robin Hood was released on movie screens it was 1991 and Kevin Costner played him as apparently the only American in medieval England and was surrounded by a fun cast.  The movie was a success and we had ball watching it because we all know the story and enjoyed watching him steal from the rich in Nottingham Forest to give to the poor.  In this version from Oscar-winning director Ridley Scott (Alien, Gladiator) you’ll see Russell Crowe star as the titular character and that may be all you’ll recognize from the legend we love.  The studio marketed this movie as the true story behind the legend but in reality none of it is.  Historians don’t really know anything about the real Robin Hood or even if he existed.  So what writer Brian Helgeland (L.A. Confidential, Mystic River) did was put a character that takes the name Robin Hood and sets him in real historical events.  I highly doubt, for example, that even if Robin Hood was a real person, the Magna Carta was HIS idea.  That’s not to say that the he’s the only character you’ll recognize.  No way!  You have everyone in this like Little John (Kevin Durand), Maid Marion (Cate Blanchett), Friar Tuck (Mark Addy) and The Sheriff of Nottingham (Matthew Macfadyen) even shows up for a meaningless and brief role.  What’s confusing is that you have all these familiar characters in a completely different and unfamiliar story.  I personally didn’t think that was horrible but I can understand it if lots of people get turned off when they go hoping to see the story they know well and instead get schooled on twelfth century British history.  The good news is that you still have Ridley Scott driving the ship.  The sets, costumes, props and locations all look incredible in Robin Hood, but for a rumored $200 million, it damn well better.  Scott and Crowe have worked together on four movies now and they know how to deliver an exciting product.  Even when Oscar-winner Crowe gets really lazy with his performance and mumbles and stumbles his way through it, like he did in this.  The movie is the most epic medieval action-drama I’ve seen since Braveheart, but it still comes no where near its scope and caliber.  The battle scenes are well done, as they always are with Scott and the story is adequately compelling enough to get interested to see what happens next.  The performances are bland except from Mark Strong who plays a new character named Godfrey.  Strong, who last impressed me as the baddie in Sherlock Holmes and Kick-Ass, is quickly becoming the quintessential villain and can be scary no matter what accent he dons.  I even thought the new story was fine for the most part, but if Robin Hood runs into too much flogging from the critics, it will be because of that.  Imagine going to see an exciting movie about the Civil War, but all the major characters were from Star Wars.  If a story like that sounds like your cup of tea, then Robin Hood hits the target.
Robin Hood (Rated PG-13)
Gavin Grade: B

The last time director Antoine Fuqua hit the streets and filmed in the actual ghetto, filled with real criminals and dangerous surroundings was 2001’s Training Day.  This movie, which had Ethan Hawke and Denzel Washington, was about a new cop starting out and paired up with a veteran that shows him what being out on the streets for too many years can do to you.  It’s one of my Top 30 favorite movies and won Denzel an Oscar.  The movie was filmed in the worst parts of L.A. and when I heard that Brooklyn’s Finest was about cops and filmed in Brownsville, Brooklyn, one of the most dangerous places on the planet; I got excited for another potential opus.  I got even more excited at its potential when I saw Ethan Hawke returned for this AND Richard Gere, Don Cheadle (Oceans 11 -13), Will Patton (Remember the Titans) and even Wesley Snipes joined him.  Sadly, I was very disappointed when I left the theater though.  Brooklyn’s Finest has three main stories about three different cops, who are on the brink of self destruction, working in the worst part of Brooklyn.  These three stories are dark and I mean damn, dark.  I don’t think the casual Richard Gere fan should see this movie especially if you really loved him in Pretty Woman or Chicago.  All I have to say is that I had nightmares from watching him in a graphic sex scene.  These stories are each told with passion and total commitment from the players involved.  It’s too bad that all three stories are ones you’ve seen a million times in any cop drama.  But when you have these three stories being juggled in the air and Fuqua doing the juggling, it’s not a total loss.  The uncertainty of the finale was enough to keep me interested.  Some scenes might’ve almost been too suspenseful and intense for me if it hadn’t been for the row and a half of people behind me that stopped gorging on snack foods like pigs just briefly enough to yell at the screen.  I think the movie started to go south once I realized that these three stories had nothing to do with each other and operated independently from one another.  I was hoping that they were all going to collide and all these gifted actors were allowed to share a scene in a big climactic finale; but that doesn’t come.  The only time we have the stories intersect is in a few gimmicky exchanges of dialogue or background action.  It frustrates me to have three separate stories like this that have nothing to do with each other in one movie, when I could be watching a film that focuses on one of them and does it well.  What’s the point of giving me the Cliff’s Notes version of three stories if they don’t have anything to do with each other?  Fuqua tries so hard to recreate the magic he had on Training Day and failed.  But I give him credit for two things.  One is shooting in Brownsville, Brooklyn.  I’ve been lost there once and it was absolutely terrifying.  To shoot a movie in Brownsville would involve gaining the trust of the people who live there and I’m sure that’s not easy.  The other is giving Wesley Snipes a chance to star in a movie that’s not straight-to-DVD again.  I have to admit that I’m a huge fan of the Blade series, but seeing Snipes in this again reminds me that even when he’s not a vampire or kicking someone in the head, he’s still a pretty good actor.  He plays the same role as he did in New Jack City, but it’s a damn good one.  It’s just too bad Snipes had to have his comeback be on this though.
Brooklyn’s Finest (Rated R)
Gavin Grade: C-

Click here for a chance to win tickets to an advanced screening of Green Zone starring Matt Damon

I have no idea how Clint Eastwood does it.  The man is 80-years-old and is still producing and directing movies.  And he’s not just directing movies that allow him to sit on a set, close to his home, in an easy chair and watch scenes of dialog play out.  He’s directing movies with complex stories, interesting characters and lots of sweeping action sequences…like Invictus.  This is the true story of how South African President Nelson Mandela used the country’s Rugby team to help united the country.  See, at the time the movie starts, South Africa had just been reunited and racial strife was still rich in the country.  The Rugby team you see was left over from the white side of the country but Mandela used it to show goodwill toward everyone.  That slight explanation into the background of what’s happening in this film might help you enjoy it more than I did.  There’s nothing at the beginning of the film that would help explain what the hell’s going on.  Because of that, I spent the first half of the film confused and most of the second half trying to figure out the first half.  Eastwood chose to make a true story about an event that not a lot of people know about that centers around a sport that almost no one knows a lot about.  That’s fine and you can do that, but make sure you guide us at some point.  And even when they do try to explain, the thick accents from the predominantly all South African cast made it even harder.  My other problem with the movie was that it failed to show how the team was uniting the country until maybe the last 20 minutes of the 134 minute run time.  I got the impression that it was happening but never gained a full sense of the scope of it all.  That was the fault of the screenplay, I believe.  The stars of the film are the ones that saved it.  Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon are always fun to watch.  Damon was rather subdued in the film but that might have been because the real life Rugby players he portrays was or he was concentrating on his accent too much to worry about anything else.  Freeman though gives one of his best performances as Mandela.  Giving him only a wig and some fake teeth, he becomes the mirror image of him.  The way Freeman carries himself, speaks, looks, and reacts to others is so spot on that it deserves the attention of the Academy.  I realize that I might be in the minority since everyone I was with loved Invictus, but it was too disconnected and too confusing for me.  I should’ve known it would be like that going in since just saying the title of the film is challenging enough.
Invictus (Rated PG-13)
Gavin Grade: C+

All the trailers and ads for this movie proudly say “The new action film from Quentin Tarantino staring Brad Pitt,” but I gotta tell ya that that’s false advertising.  Sorry about that.  I was a little disappointed too.  I guess this requires a little explanation.  The “Brad Pitt” part is easy.  “Basterds” has a running time of 2.5 hours and I would guess that Pitt is in it for about an hour of that but he makes every second of those scenes brutal and hilarious.  But the absence of Pitt is not a bad thing since the other actors pull their own weight; it’s just not the Pitt-driven vehicle you probably thought it would be.  With the exception of Eli Roth (Director of the “Hostel” movies), BJ Novak (“The Office”) and Mike Myers (yeah, that Mike Myers) you probably won’t recognize anyone in the movie.  Tarantino selected a mostly European cast that is a virtual United Nations of languages.  That’s something that you need to be prepared for since 75% of the movie is in subtitles as the actors speak German, French and even Italian.  Two of the new foreign faces that are a joy to watch are Christoph Waltz and Melanie Laurent.  Waltz is the perfect villain as he encompasses sinister humor and brutal menace in every scene he’s in.  Laurent is a stunningly gorgeous French actress that has mastered the art of subtlety in her anguish and enragement so well, it’s devastating to watch.  Now, what I meant by the lack of “Tarantino” is that the movie feels more like a European director trying to emulate his style.  Maybe that was his point, but it backfires at times.  It’s to be expected (and usually welcomed) that QT’s movies are self-indulgent, but when you have those long, plotting, dialogue-heavy scenes in another language it looses some of that Tarantino Touch that we all love and will sit through.  The movie really does test your patience.  The finale does NOT disappoint in the slightest, which is your reward for sitting through the whole movie.  If you get bored or confused to the point of wanting to leave the theater, I would totally understand.  All of his movies are made for true fans of film, but this may be his most ambitious attempt at seeing how far can he push his audience before giving them the violent finish they wait for.
Inglorious Basterds (Rated R)
Gavin Grade: A-

A lot of critics say that movies about the Iraq War aren’t very good and don’t do very well at the box office.  I don’t entirely agree with that.  I thought “Jarhead” and “The Kingdom” were two very well done Iraq War movies.  But there’s something about “The Hurt Locker” that makes it not only the best Iraq War movie ever made, it might be possibly one of the best war movies ever made.  But don’t go into this expecting the epic scale of “Saving Private Ryan.”  Don’t expect the heartbreaking drama of “Platoon.”  In fact, don’t even expect the sense of gallant pride that “Glory” delivered either.  This movie is more in the realm of “Full Metal Jacket.”  It’s not really about anything.  It doesn’t have much of a story but it doesn’t need one.  It’s written by Mark Boal who was embedded with explosive experts in Iraq.  The portrait he paints of soldiers (he also wrote the very underrated “In the Valley of Elah”) is not heroic nor controversial.  He knows that soldiers are complex and tortured people who have problems and dreams and fears but are trained not to let any of that surface.  I think it has to be noted also that this movie was directed by Kathryn Bigelow…a woman.  I think that’s significant because A: she proves that you don’t need to be a testosterone-filled man to tell a compelling war film and B: she may be the first female Best Director winner.  She uses mostly handheld camera shots to create an amazing sense of tension and suspense.  She also made the call to cast unfamiliar actors as the leads with a few famous faces throughout in cameos.  Stars Jeremy Renner and Anthonie Mackie show us tormented and dark people who suppress their emotions so well, that it makes them a far cry from the John Wayne-type of heroes we’re used to seeing in war films.  To describe what “The Hurt Locker” story is about is pointless.  I think that’s why the title of the movie doesn’t even show up in any of the credits or is even spoken in any dialogue.  But a “hurt locker” is a military term for a figurative place where someone is expected to suffer great pain.  Whether or not the “hurt locker” in this movie relates to Iraq or the mind of the soldiers is up to you to interrupt.
The Hurt Locker (Rated R)
Gavin Grade: A-