Film Review: 
“Real Steel” is a movie that surprised me a little bit. When I first saw the trailers, I must admit that I wasn’t particularly keen on seeing it, but when I saw it in theaters I was pleasantly surprised. The movie still has some slight narrative quirks and doesn’t always know what it wants to be, but it is a pretty good movie with some very interesting robot effects. This would be a great movie for the whole family.
3/5 Stars
Video and Audio Quality:
I saw no major image issues with the picture, and the audio was very good. The picture is rich with detail and texture especially noticeable in the robots, and the sound keeps up with the action during fight sequences extremely well.
4.5/5 Stars
Special Features:
“Real Steel” Second Screen: Ringside with Director Shawn Levy: This is a really cool special feature that allows you to link your iPad (or laptop) to your Blu-Ray player. It will push additional content to your iPad while the movie plays with a director’s commentary. Every once in a while the movie will pause and give you a behind-the-scenes look at various things in the movie like the truck or the robots. I highly recommend watching this, especially if you have an iPad.
Deleted and Extended Scenes: There are a number of interesting scenes here and I like that they had the director introduce each scene and explain why it was cut.
Making of Metal Valley: This is a 14-minute behind-the-scenes look at the making of the movie’s most elaborate scene. It is very interesting as they do a good job of showing you what exactly goes in to making a movie (4 days of work turns in to 15 seconds on the screen). A must-watch.
Building the Bots: A brief, and not particularly thorough look at how they made the robots for the movie. I was a little bit disappointed in this because I really liked the robot design in the movie and wish they would have gone in to a little bit more detail about how they made things.
Sugar Ray Leonard: Cornerman’s Champ: This was a short, but interesting special feature about the former boxing champion’s influence on the movie.
Countdown to the Fight: The Charlie Kenton Story: This is a fake ESPN style feature about Hugh Jackman’s character. It just comes off a little bit corny.
Most of the special features are short or not very interesting, but the Second Screen mode is really excellent. My only complaint would be that the behind-the-scenes features cut into the Second Screen mode are not playable on their own.
4/5 Stars
Final Thoughts
If you are a fan of “Real Steel” this is an excellent Blu-Ray to own. Fun for the whole family.
“Real Steel” was released on Blu-Ray, DVD & Digital Copy on January 24, 2012.
