Real Steel

1.5 Paws
Seen recently at 20 Grand Cinema

Child actors come in two categories - great and awful. Dakota Goyo (Max Kenton) is part of the latter. He reminds me of Jake Lloyd, the young Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace. Both overact and come off as shrill, unrealistic preteens.

I wish the bad news stops there, but it doesn't. Evangeline Lilly (Bailey Tallet) is another unfortunate casting choice. She's too young for Hugh Jackman's Charlie Kenton, and she does nothing to make us believe she's grown up in a boxing gym. If it were up to me, I would have given that part to Maria Bello (The Cooler, A History of Violence), who would have lent a sense of credibility to the film.

The only thing that stopped me from wishing I'd skipped it altogether was Atom, the robot Max rescues from the scrap heap. There's something very human about his bright blue eyes and Tin Man-like face. It turns out that - just like Charlie Brown's Christmas tree - all it needed was a little love.

Bonus Bones: 0
No dogs, not even a futuristic robot version of one.