Pun Salad

I will be honest with you: this movie isn't the most original one you'll ever see. Think Rocky, add robots, and a sprinkling of The Champ; you've pretty much got it. But, hey, it worked for me. There's a reason those movies are classics, after all.

Set in 2020, the Gentleman's Sport is now performed by machines. But people are still crazy for it, and big money is to be made at the top. But Charlie, played by Hugh Jackman, is as far from the top as he can get. He is skating on the edge of financial ruin, mainly due to his poor impulse control driving him to bad decisions. The opening scenes demonstrate this easily: he is reduced to pitting his beat-up robot against a bull at dinky county fair. Charlie loses focus while showboating, and the robot is reduced to scrap. He returns home in defeat, dismaying his sorta-girlfriend, Bailey (played by Evangeline Lilly)

Out of the blue, Charlie learns that his ex-wife has passed away, leaving their 11-year-old son, Max. Conniving Charlie manufactures a scheme to wangle some money out of Max's aunt and uncle; the downside is that he has to take the kid in tow for a few weeks.

Unexpectedly, Max is a robot boxing fanatic, and a mechanical whiz. He takes a shine to an old sparring robot they salvage from a junkyard. And (see above) you can kind of guess what happens then.

Hugh Jackman is very good (pretty much as he always is). Evangeline Lilly is fine, too; she's very easy to look at. The movie's world of 2020 is deftly imagined, with boxing venues ranging from the superglamorous to the post-apocalyptic. The robots are utterly believable.