( CNN ) -- The trouble with boxing is , people get hurt . Some time soon , according to `` Real Steel , '' the sport will get a radical technological upgrade and human pugilists will be replaced by robots ; combatants who will fight to the death every time they climb into the ring . In a sport like that the machines might get the glory , but you will still find human interest in the corner , where trainers have been replaced by computer programmers , engineers , welders , and if you go down far enough , old fashioned managers like Charlie ( Hugh Jackman ) , an ex-boxer so deep in debt he 's nearly out for the count . Reunited with the 11-year-old son he 's practically forgotten , Charlie promptly sells him to the boy 's aunt and uncle . But the boy wo n't be sidelined quite so easily . He 's a fight fan himself , and he means to go on the road with his old man and more importantly with the junkyard sparring bot `` Atom '' he rescues from scrap . This is `` Transformers '' for kids , basically -- and yes , I appreciate you might think `` Transformers '' would have that demographic covered , but apparently nobody told Michael Bay , who pitched his three movies at teens and up . `` Night at the Museum '' director Shawn Levy does not make the same mistake . Although it 's rated PG-13 for some mildly adult language and robot-on-robot violence ( and I think we can be sure that no robots were harmed in the course of this film ) , `` Real Steel '' is fundamentally about a son reconnecting with his dad , something Levy never lets us forget for long . It 's as corny as Kansas , but the mix of old fashioned heart and new fangled animatronic cyber tech will make this picture a winner for fathers and sons ( Levy has squeezed in a cameo for his three young daughters , but the female characters are mostly relegated to cheering from the stands ) . Hugh Jackman is doing a minor variation on his Logan signature tune , but for the best part of the movie he lets the obnoxiously talented Dakota Goyo as his son runs rings around him , stealing one scene after another . It 's an uneven fight -- rigged by screenwriter John Gatins , aided and abetted by Levy -- but it 's fun to see the kid make a chump of the champ . Surprisingly , Levy resists turning Atom into an autonomous character . He does have some neat features though . He 's smaller and weaker than most of his competition , with pale blue bulbs for eyes beneath what looks like a fencing mask . But he can take a beating and in `` shadow mode '' he mimics his coach 's movements with lightning speed . He can dance too -- like a six-foot , three-ton butterfly . Robots aside , Levy does n't go in for futurism really . The locations are steeped in the heartland : a cavernous boxing gym that smacks of the 1920s . Charlie 's truck looks like something out of a 1940s film . Neon motel signs , back-country roads , and an old Detroit auto plant repurposed as a post-industrial sports arena . There 's a broader nostalgia at work here , as if the fight 's gone out of the whole country and one plucky kid and his pet robot could galvanize the whole show . Did they really need to fall back on xenophobic shorthand to pump up the climactic bout , when Atom takes on Zeus , a robot combining Asian know-how and Russian money ? And could n't someone have called time on the over-the-top product placement that clogs up the finale ? In the end , `` Real Steel '' wo n't win any prizes for innovation , but it works -- it 's a technical knockout .
`` Real Steel '' stars Hugh Jackman as a struggling boxing promoter . The film is based on the true story of boxer Jack Dempsey. Reviewer says the movie is a `` technical knockout ''