Film / Real Steel

"Times have changed. Fighting has changed — but the crowd, they never change. They just get bigger."

— Charlie Kenton

A 2011 Science Fiction Action Drama film (loosely) based on a Richard Matheson story first adapted for The Twilight Zone (1959). Starring Hugh Jackman, Evangeline Lilly, Dakota Goyo, Anthony Mackie and Kevin Durand.

Real Steel takes place 20 Minutes into the Future, where human boxers have been supplanted by robotic warriors who can dish out and take far more damage. Former boxer Charlie Kenton (Jackman) now works on the outside of the ring as a robot handler with his girlfriend Bailey (Lilly), exhibiting in town fairs and underground robot fights to make ends meet, when he suddenly gets his estranged son Max (Goyo) dropped in his lap after the boy's mother dies.

Needless to say, neither Charlie nor Max take well to this at first, but they slowly manage to bond over Atom - an obsolete robot they find in the junkyard after Charlie's previous 'bot gets trashed, with the ability to mimic the moves of others and the resilience to survive just about any punishment. Together they rebuild Atom and train him to fight, aiming for the championships through the underground scene for Charlie's last shot at a comeback.

Executive produced by Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis, although not directed by either (step forward Shawn Levy).

---

This film provides examples of:

• 10-Minute Retirement: Tak went into retirement after Noisy Boy lost to the Lemkovas' first robot, Rubicon. Shortly after, he came out of retirement after striking a deal with them that culminated in Zeus' creation.
• 20 Minutes into the Future: Aside from the fact that robots have taken over boxing, everything looks pretty much like present day. The film is set in 2020.
• Abnormal Limb Rotation Range: Twin Cities can turn both his heads 360 degrees.
• Abusive Parents: Charlie, for most of the film.
• Achilles' Heel:
  • Twin Cities has a small hitch in his shoulder whenever he performs a right hook, slowing him down slightly and telegraphing his punches. Once Charlie notices it, he exploits it to dodge out of Twin Cities' longer reach, then batter him into submission.
  • Zeus specialises in destroying his opponent with fast, hard strikes while blitzing through anything they can throw at him. As a result he's ill-prepared to go up against a Stone Wall such as Atom, who can endure his blows until Zeus starts running out of power then beat on the now-exhausted champion until Zeus goes down.
• Acting Your Intellectual Age: 11-year old he may be, but Max is almost scary adult-like in how he mechanically enhances Atom and plots circles around half the adults in the film.
• Actually Pretty Funny: One of Twin Cities' operators laughs when Atom makes his way to the ring, getting as much of a kick out of Max's dance routine as the crowd does.
• Adaptation Title Change: Real Steel, is based on the short story simply called "Steel".
• Advertised Extra: Noisy Boy, Midas, and Ambush appear on many posters. They disappear after the first act.
• All There in the Manual.
  • This website gives some detail on the movie's universe, particularly the history of robot boxing.
  • A video about Atom also explains his origins: He was a Sparring Robot for former Robot champion Gamma.
  • The Blu-Ray has Charlie's background in a fake ESPN documentary.
• All Your Powers Combined: Atom packs its own inherent durability, fists from Ambush ^note Atom as a sparring 'bot basically had "kid gloves" to avoid damaging the actual boxing 'bot, the voice command processor from Noisy Boy, courtesy of Max, and Charlie's boxing moves programed in via his shadow function.
• And Show It to You: One of Zeus' victories looks like this, with Zeus punching through the middle of Danger Zone's chestplate and yanking out a vital component, complete with trailing wires.
• Asian and Nerdy:
  • Tak Mashido, Zeus' creator. Back Story on the film's website reveals that he was the original creator of Noisy Boy, Charlie's second robot, and was also one of the revolutionary inventors of robot boxing.
  • Going even further, the film's Back Story is that robot boxing started as a hobby among robot enthusiasts in Japan, meaning that the entire sport was the result of this trope.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Downplayed. In the final fight, Zeus was saved by the bell and won against Atom on the judges' decision, though the commentator described the fight as an "Absolutely Humiliating Near-Loss" for Zeus, and Zeus' controller Tak stormed out of the ring in frustration, leaving no comment.
• Berserk Button: Do not call Finn "homeboy".
• Big Bad: Farra Lemkova, a powerful businesswoman who aids Zeus' creator, Tak Mashido.
• Bittersweet Ending: All the way through. Zeus retains his title as undefeated champion, but only barely and he's no longer the popular favourite; meanwhile, Charlie and Max have won the hearts of everyone in the world, earning them and Atom the title of the People's Champion. Much like Rocky, it was ultimately about going the distance and making the invincible sweat. Charlie controlling Atom in shadow mode against Zeus in the final round is an act of desperation that almost certainly won't become standard practice and in the end he didn't win, even if it was a glorious moment, but at least he still got to "fight" one more time and basically pull off a last hurrah for human boxers made obsolete by the robots. Finally, Max is probably going to live with his adoptive parents rather than Charlie, but they did get their glorious WRB fight and Charlie's sister-in-law has clearly been won over by the sport, meaning that Max might not have to leave it behind in his new life and it's implied he may be able to see Charlie again.
• Blood Sport: There are no more restrictions on where the fighters can hit, and fights in less legitimate venues are often to the "death". An early scene also has Charlie explaining that human boxing was slowly turning into this in its waning years, right around the time the WRB took over.
• Boxing Lesson: Charlie gives these to Atom, who can then mimic his movements.
• A Boy and His X: Charlie initially has no interest in Atom; it is his son who does most of the initial work and fights all of the fights, until Charlie takes over for the WRB matches. Ironically, it reflects on his and Max's relationship.
• Bratty Half-Pint: Charlie's first impression of Max. Given that Max just blackmailed him into giving a few dollars...
• Break His Heart to Save Him: A variation: Charlie gives Max back to Debra and Marvin after Ricky beats both of them up, causing him to realize how unfit he is to have custody of Max.
• Break Out the Museum Piece: Atom is a 2nd generation fighting robot, meaning he's horribly obsolete and outclassed by modern robots. However, Charlie and Max are initially forced to use Atom since its the only robot available to them.
• Bribing Your Way to Victory: The Xbox Arcade game seems good value at first, but the high-quality parts cost the equivalent of an Indie game - for each one. You can even buy complete and overpowered robots for the same amount of points you paid to buy the game in the first place. Also, you have to shell out even more to play 2-player, use Zeus or even decorate your robot.
• Bring It: Charlie takes advantage of Atom's shadow mode to have Atom give this gesture to Zeus, firing up the crowd and drawing Zeus into Charlie's Rope-a-Dope.
• Brought to You by the Letter "S": Ambush has an "A" on his chest.
• Calling Your Attacks: Voice-controlled robots necessitate this, though human operators are typically far enough apart that it doesn't matter.
• Chekhov's Gun: Atom's shadow function is mentioned early on in an apparent throwaway line. It later becomes crucial to Atom's winning streak due to Charlie's boxing expertise, and ultimately causes his near-victory against Zeus after the voice control breaks mid-match.
• Children Raise You: Charlie initially has no interest in Max other than using him to blackmail his sister-in-law's husband out of some quick (though badly-needed) cash. Over the course of the movie he discovers that he actually likes the kid. And when his own screwups come back to haunt both of them, he sends Max back to Debra and Marvin and rejects the second payment out of disgust at his own actions. But after some snuggle time with his girlfriend and a pep talk, he confesses everything to Max and asks him to stand with him in the bout with Zeus. In the end, spending just three months taking care of his son has improved every aspect of him, not only as a fighter but as a human being.
• Combat Breakdown: In the final round, all the fancy indirect commands for both Atom and Zeus are dropped through damage or desperation. Charlie is left using Atom's shadow mode after the voice control is broken, and Tak decides to control Zeus manually after he runs almost out of power and Atom starts fighting back. This is particularly visible in the moments before Zeus goes down: the champion is barely able to stand and leaning heavily against Atom is a desperate attempt to pin his arms, with Atom/Charlie furiously punching at Zeus' heavily-armoured midsection to try and damage him.
• Combat Pragmatist: Midas' handler, Artie Bakker, has no problem playing dirty in the ring. After knocking Noisy Boy back into a corner, he directs Midas to start stamping on Noisy Boy's legs to prevent him getting up and has no problem with tearing off one of the opponent's arms to reduce his attack capabilities.
• Cool Car:
  • Charlie's International Harvester Sightliner.
  • Debra and Marvin's Cadillac Sixteen.
• Covers Always Lie: The cover of the DVD release showcases Atom and Ambush as if Ambush is a significant character. Ambush is in the movie for all of five minutes and is completely trashed. Zeus would have been a better choice.
• Cranial Processing Unit: Most of the robots seem to have these; justified as the robots are built to simulate human boxing.
• Creator Cameo: Screenwriter John Gatins plays Kingpin, the mohawked promoter who heads The Zoo. That might explain his enthusiasm.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Nearly every battle Zeus has ever been in had this result - no-one has never gone two rounds with him. True to form, Zeus knocks down Atom with his first blow. Atom then gets back up and narrowly makes it to the first round's bell, stunning the spectators and Team Zeus.
• David Versus Goliath: Atom is significantly smaller than most of the opponents he faces. The fight promos between Atom and Zeus specifically refer to the match as such.
• Deadpan Snarker: Max, much to Charlie's annoyance.
• Defeating the Undefeatable: Subverted. Atom does indeed knock Zeus down near the end of the fight, but Zeus is able to get back up. However, by this point in the fight Zeus is low on energy, and had he not been saved by the bell, Atom probably would have been able to knock him out.
• Delinquent Hair:
  • King Pin, Metro's handler, is an Underworld punk who sports a pretty over the top mohawk.
  • Midas' head is modeled after a Greco-Roman helmet, but it also makes him look like he has a mohawk. With the underground fighting setting and his violent fighting style, it also employs this trope.
• Derelict Graveyard: Charlie goes to a robotic version of this to look for spare parts. He finds Atom.

• The Determinator: Atom takes a huge amount of punishment and just keeps getting back up.
• Didn't See That Coming: Atom standing up against Zeus. So much that Zeus starts malfunctioning - see Suicidal Overconfidence.
• Disappeared Dad: Charlie, who has been out of Max's life for nearly all of his eleven years of living. Needless to say, his late girlfriend's sister and husband hate him for it.
• Distracted by the Sexy: How Charlie loses the Ambush fight.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: In a variation, Ricky fails to understand that the only reason why Finn called him "partner" was because of his hat.
• Evil Debt Collector: Charlie has a run-in with one, Ricky. He and his goons drive Charlie to the Despair Event Horizon, but during Atom's fight with Zeus, is Hoist by His Own Petard by trying to renege on a deal with one of Charlie's old buddies.
• Eyepatch of Power: Midas' handler. He's portrayed by the movie's stunt coordinator, and apparently the guy is missing an eye in real life.
• Fanservice:
  • The bikini girls at The Zoo.
  • The girl in the robot costume holding up the round cards during the league matches.
  • Farra Lemkova has a kind of Sensual Slav/Kim Kardashian thing going on.
• Fictional Sport: Robot boxing, obviously. It's stated that a perfect storm of boxing's decline (in part due to general uninterest and the various scares about boxers developing brain damage) and technological wizardry (and marketing) by Tak Moshido got people far more into robot boxing than real boxing itself.
• Fight Clubbing: When we see Charlie, his mech fights have been reduced to this - taking place at unofficial tournaments and outright underground fighting rings - and Atom's first real win takes place at an illegal ring in a former zoo.
• Finishing Move: Deconstructed. With Midas on the ropes, Charlie has Noisy Boy wind up for the big one- giving his opponent enough time for a counter-punch to the gut, leading to Noisy Boy's destruction.
• Foreshadowing: Bailey tells a story about Charlie's fight against a major championship contender and tells about how Charlie fought him relentlessly, pushed him to the limit, and tired him out — and ultimately lost in the final round.
• Funny Background Event: When Bailey sits down in the bar to watch Atom's fight with Twin Cities, the guy next to her clearly tries to get ready to hit on her, but cannot even get a word out before she turns her attention to the fight.
• Gadgeteer Genius:
  • Max manages to greatly enhance Atom overnight by integrating Noisy Boy's voice recognition tech with Atom.
  • Tak (Zeus' creator) is hailed as one by the media, being considered one of the revolutionary figures in the robot boxing world.
• Giant Robot Hands Save Lives: Literally, but more feasibly than usual.
• Gonk: Metro, compared to the other 'bots. There's a reason why the filmmakers referred to him as "Frankenbot."
• Good Old Robot: By necessity, at first, but Atom quickly proves his worth.
• Gratuitous Japanese: Appears on Max's shirt at one point. Max also knows a few Japanese phrases, as shown when he test controls Noisy Boy (at least enough to say 'left', 'right' and 'uppercut'). handwaved by the fact that Max plays Japanese bootlegs of video games.
• Groin Attack: Midas does this to Noisy Boy in their fight. They might be robots, but it still made all the men in the room wince. And just like in real life fighting sports, it is heavily implied to be an illegal move.
• Half The Robot It Used To Be: While at the WRB Arena, there's a brief scene in which the upper half of Axelrod (one of Zeus' opponents) is carted out of the ring, twitching and punching the air. A later background event reveals what happened - Zeus KO'd him in two hits, with the first one staggering him before the second split him in half at the waist.
  Max: Did you see that?! That's what's left of Axelrod!
• Heroic BSoD: Charlie ends up keeping his promise and giving Max back to his legal parents when they returned out of guilt for having Max getting involved in being beat up with him by Ricky and his men.
• Heroic Second Wind: After the Vo-Com unit gets damaged in the fight against Zeus, Charlie controls Atom via the Shadow Mode directly, at Max's suggestion. After a rope-a-dope, Atom goes on the offensive.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Atom's powerful double uppercut sends Metro into a malfunction frenzy, ending up destroying himself by hammering his own head no matter what King Pin does to try make him stop.
• Hourglass Plot: At first, Charlie is the reckless one, and Max is the cautious methodical one. As the movie progresses, Max becomes more reckless and aggressive, and Charlie starts thinking things out more.
• Humans Are Special: Partly the reason why Atom has an advantage over other boxers: His Shadow Mode allows him to fight with the grace of a human boxer, as opposed to his opponents, who tend to be operated from outside the ring.
• Hypocritical Humor: Right before the WRB debut, Charlie tries to reassure Max that they need to remain calm and have fun, while practically in the middle of a nervous breakdown about finally getting into the WRB.
• I Know Mortal Kombat: Max learns the fight game quickly partially in thanks to his video game experience.
• Jerkass:
  • Ricky. He ignores Charlie's calls to quit the match when his robot is badly damaged, and then beats Charlie and his son up and steals their winnings.
  • Charlie himself, at first. He abandons his pregnant girlfriend and their unborn son, makes bets he can't cover, borrows money he can't repay, sells his son Max to his deceased ex-girlfriend's sister and her wealthy husband, and stiffs the kid out of what should rightfully be back child support, he finally owns up to it after getting his ass kicked in front of Max and tries to do the right thing and turn him over to a couple that can provide a safer and more stable environment.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Charlie, after Character Development.
• Jump Scare: As Charlie and Max take a look inside Crash Palace, there is a brief shot of a bot named Albino sitting up and throwing a punch, giving Max the creeps.
• Kick the Dog: Ricky and his men had already done quite a number on Charlie, but then when he learns from Max that he's beating on his father, he decides to belittle and beat him some even more, even though he had already taken all their money.
• Kid With The Remote Control: Max is the one who initially controls Atom in all his bouts, but he relinquishes control to Charlie once he installs the voice recognition (and even more after said voice control gets broken and Atom is forced to copy Charlie's moves).
• Killer Robot: Averted. People in the film often stand within punching distance of the boxers, however the machines seem to be mostly inert outside of their programmed fighting modes.
• Large Ham: The antagonists aren't shy of getting hammy, but King Pin is easily the movie's most unhinged scenery-chewer, especially his Big "NO!" when Metro loses to Atom.
• Laser-Guided Karma: When Charlie puts up money he doesn't have in a bet with Ricky and loses, Ricky tracks him down and beats him. Ricky then proceeds to make a bet with Finn, with money he doesn't have. He tries to run out on Finn when the latter shows up, without thinking that a promoter and bookie acting on the major league would be smart enough to have backup to catch an idiot that wants to backpedal on the failed bet. At the end, he's "escorted" (read: shoved) off the arena, and one can presume his offscreen fate.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: In the final round when Atom starts coming out on top, Tak Moshido takes manual control of Zeus to match Charlie.
• Licensed Game: Two, actually; one for Xbox Live / Play Station Network, and one for Android / iOS. No motion or voice controls, sadly.
• Lightning Bruiser: Atom. As shown many times in the film, the real reason the robot is so dangerous in the ring is because it was designed to react and move instantly while in shadow boxing mode, and is able to keep up with human movements, as well as being designed to take epic levels of punishment as a training robot. Adding in the arm components to throw punches, and given his size means he doesn't need weight behind his punches since he's almost always punching upwards, gives him the Bruiser side of the trope.
• Like Father, Like Son
  Charlie: Stubborn kid.
  Bailey: Surprise surprise.
• Logical Weakness: Metro is a "Frankenbot" seemingly cobbled together out of whatever bits and pieces Kingpin had on hand. Due to this shoddy construction his systems are unstable to the point where a single solid hit causes them to go utterly berserk, with Metro being reduced to randomly flailing about before catching fire and collapsing over.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!": Everyone in the stadium when Atom lands a punch on Zeus' head.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Hints of Atom being sentient are dropped, but it is never explicitly stated one way or the other. According to the DVD Commentary, Atom's fight with Metro was originally written to confirm that Atom was indeed sentient, with him fighting without Max operating him. The filmmakers eventually realized that it would be better if this trope was in effect, so the scene was scripted to its final form.
• May–December Romance: Debra and Marvin.
• Meaningful Echo:
  • "You do realize you're talking to a machine."
  • Atom's and Charlie's history. Charlie first came to prominence by being a no-name meat with no previous real experience in a warm-up match, giving a supposed world-class boxer quite a scare by being relentless and implacable. Atom is a sparring bot who came to prominence by winning an exhibition match against a supposed world-class boxing 'bot for exactly the same reasons.
  • In Atom's first fight, as they lead Atom into the Zoo, Charlie tells Max that he'll be bringing Atom home in pieces. Max's response: "We'll see." In the final fight in the film, as they lead Atom into the ring for their fight against Zeus, Max asks Charlie if they're not going to win. Charlie's response: "We'll see."
• Meaningful Name:
  • Atom. The small and invincible.
  • Zeus as well. Just like how his namesake was the "King of the Gods," Zeus, being the WRB World Champion, is "King of the Robots."
  • The title itself. Real Steel doesn't just refer to the tournament itself. It also refers to having the guts to keep on going even when it seems there's just too much to take. Especially evident in the last fight.
• Meaningless Villain Victory: Zeus May have won the match, but the crowd most definitely doesn't care as they still cheer for Atom despite the loss. Tak, despite prevailing, was still humiliated that his masterpiece would have been beaten by an ancient scrapheap not even designed for actual fighting if the fight had continued, and the crowd booing his supposedly-perfect creation.
• Misapplied Phlebotinum: Cracked has also written two articles pointing out that there were several better uses for the robots in this setting besides fighting each other.
• Morality Pet: Ricky's mistress. When debt collectors come looking for Ricky, he performs his first (and possibly last) selfless action by separating himself from his mistress before getting caught.
• Motion-Capture Mecha: Oddly enough, averted for the most part. Most modern (for the film) robots aren't motion-controlled, and Atom's unusual in that he's one of the surviving robots from that era. Atom's only designed to 'capture' movements and reuse them in fights as pre-programmed movements that are voice-activated (called the shadowcopy), and Max thinks that real-time motion control is only useful for his and Atom's gimmick (dancing pre-fight). Charlie reactivates the shadowcopy to beat the stuffing out of Zeus in their fight.)
• Multiple Head Case: Twin Cities has two heads that can rotate 360 degrees, letting it track its opponent at all times.
• Must Have Caffeine: Max drinks a lot of Dr. Pepper when working on Atom.
• My Defense Need Not Protect Me Forever: Charlie/Atom runs a textbook Rope-a-Dope on Zeus in the final round of the title fight, goading Tak into hammering down against Atom until Zeus is almost completely out of power.
• Mythology Gag: A few references are made to the original Matheson story:
  • The robots in the original story looked like regular human boxers. In the film, Charlie tells Max that the first fighting robots resembled humans more closely than the current fighters we see in the film. Atom, being a Generation Two fighter, is still somewhat human-looking, at least more than his opponents.
  • The original story has its main robot breakdown before its fight, leading to its handler to fight in its place. Naturally, this doesn't go very well. In the film, Atom's voice recognition is damaged in the middle of his fight with Zeus. Charlie then has to control Atom through his Shadow Mode, meaning that Charlie is technically the one fighting against Zeus.
  • The original story stated that human boxing was abolished because it was too violent. The film puts a different spin on this: human boxing did die out, but not because it was considered too violent, but because spectators didn't think it was violent enough.
• Never Trust a Trailer:
  • The trailer has a scene where Lilly's character describes to Max how Charlie was a boxer, making it sound like a case of I Coulda Been a Contender!. In the film itself, the description she uses is actually directed towards another boxer.
  • The trailers make it look like Charlie uses Atom's "shadow function" to control the robot for all of his fights. This is only used to "train" Atom, enabling the robot to execute Charlie's graceful boxing moves as opposed to purely mechanical attacks. Charlie only controls Atom by motion capture as a last resort in the final round of the fight against Zeus when Atom's other control functions are knocked offline, and is laughed at by the announcers as a desperation tactic.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: during their fight, one of Zeus' blows destroys Atom's vocal controls. Max decides to switch Atom to Shadow Mode, which, with Charlie's boxing skills, almost cost Zeus the win.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown:
  • Atom got his ass kicked when he went up against Metro. The tides quickly turn to his favor in Round 2.
  • Once he gets the upper hand in their fight, Midas takes Noisy Boy apart, repeatedly stamping on the downed robot's legs before breaking one of Noisy Boy's arms off and knocking the former WRB bot's head clean off.
• No New Fashions in the Future: Clothing styles still look the way they are in 2011. Granted, the film is only in 2020, but you'd expect some things to change. Since 2020 has come and gone and people's fashion didn't change that much, the film didn't miss the mark by employing this trope instead of attempting Space Clothes for the hell of it.
• No One Could Survive That!: No robot has ever lasted more than a round with Zeus, most being torn to shreds by him and when Atom gets knocked down several times (once as soon as the fight starts) in the first round, the announcers commentary evokes the trope each and every time he gets up.
• No-Sell: Atom seems to shrug off most hits, which they credit to his purpose as a Sparring Robot.
• Off with His Head!:
  • Happens more than once, including one incident where the head flies straight up — reinforcing the connection to Rock'em Sock'em Robots.
  • Zeus executes Gridlock by squashing his head flat between his fists.
• One Hit Knockout:
  • Zeus specialises in these. The brief montage of him besting other bots ahead of Atom's first League appearance features him taking down other League robots with one blow, occasionally adding a second for theatrics or pure overkill. True to form, Atom falls instantly at the first punch Zeus throws at him. He gets up soon after.
  • Happens in the first fight against Metro. Atom only does one real offensive move the entire fight and it takes Metro down. Said move (known in some circles as Hanuman) has roots in Muay Thai, sacrificing any semblance of defense for pure offensive power.

• Papa Wolf: Charlie fights even more ferociously when Ricky and his men are going to proceed with beating up Max, his son as well.
• Parental Abandonment: Max. His father Charlie left his then-girlfriend, not knowing how to deal with the responsibility of having a child; and his mother dies prior to the events of the film.
• Perpetual Smiler: The mesh screen on Atom's face has seams that resemble a nose ridge and a smiling mouth. It adds to the child-like appeal of Atom's shape.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Atom is a fair deal smaller than most of the robots he fights. Max as well.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Ricky, who just has to Kick the Dog further by mockingly calling Finn "home boy!" toward the end of the film.
• Possession Implies Mastery: Averted. Charlie gets Noisy Boy, a former world champion robot controlled by voice recognition, but he never bothered to learn all the specific command sequences. In his first match, Noisy Boy is defeated because Charlie can not give him anything besides basic instructions, unhelpful combos, and the worst timing in the history of Earth.
• Practical Effects: There were a large number of animatronic robots built for this film but the CGI is good enough that most viewers would need Word of God to tell the difference.
• Product Placement:
  • Sponsorships within the movie appear all over the equipment and arenas used by the WRB (considering that it's a professional sport, it would be kind of jarring if they weren't there), including Sprint, Bing, and the Xbox 720. Dr. Pepper appears as a standard product placement when Max drinks it throughout the movie. Royal Purple (synthetic oils and lubricants) appears on the control consoles of Team Twin Cities and Team Zeus. Hewlett-Packard's "HP" logo can clearly be seen through the back of Noisy Boy's control console and the round cards in Zeus' fight.
  • Word of God admits that Dr. Pepper gave them permission to use their soda on-camera, but the film received no revenue from the appearance. They simply used Dr. Pepper because that was the soda they had on-hand, and needed something with caffeine content to justify Max's hyperactive-ness in one scene.
• Promotion to Parent: Sure, Charlie is Max's biological parent, but he had never had any involvement in Max's life before the events of the movie, and the only reason he started to was because Max's aunt had a wealthy husband who paid him off to take Max for a few months. Over the course of the film, while he never tries to reclaim legal custody of Max, he does become much more of a father to him.
• Puppy Eyes: Max pulls this on Charlie.
  Charlie: "Oh, come on. Are you kidding me with those eyes? Dammit..."
• Purple Is Powerful: In addition to his cool Samurai design, Noisy Boy is colored purple, with yellow decorations.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Zeus wins the final fight, but just barely by scoring higher previously. The match ended with Atom raining blows upon the hobbled Zeus, and it's clear that Atom would've won by knockout had the fight gone on for even one more round. More importantly, Zeus loses credibility and the respect of the crowd (as his "never needed more than one round" reputation is broken), while Atom is crowned "The People's Champion."
• Red Baron:
  • Most of the robots. Twin Cities is "The Two-Headed Tyrant", Midas is "The Gold-Blooded Killer", Zeus is "The King of the Ring", Noisy Boy is either "The Steel Samurai" or "The Manga Mangler" and Atom eventually becomes "The People's Champion".
  • The games give the minor bots their own nicknames. Blacktop is "The Bot out of Hell", Six Shooter is "The Sheriff of Robotown", Gridlock is "The Bronzed Bodybuilder Bot", Axelrod is "The Wheel-Spinning Fistfighter", and so on.
• Religious and Mythological Theme Naming: Zeus ("King of the Robots") and Midas ("The Gold-Blooded Killer"). Additional material also gives us Ida-Ten, Sun Wukong, and Armageddon. And of course, there's Atom, which sounds suspiciously similar to "Adam".
• Repeat Cut: In the battle with Twin Cities, the final blow and fall is shown from three different angles. Two of them from behind each robot, then once looking straight down, complete with triumphant music swelling in the background.
• Ridiculously Human Robots: Played with. The robots are mostly tools, and generally have no free will. Zeus is autonomous, but his programming seems only limited to fighting. There's also a brief scene of Metro looking confused when Atom dodges an attack. And of course, it's left to the viewer to decide whether or not Atom is sentient.
• Robot Athlete: The premise of the movie revolves around them.
• Rock Beats Laser: Atom is actually a sparring robot, meaning that he's designed to take lots of damage. This proves useful when his durability outlasts Zeus' energy.
• Secret Art: Atom's Shadow Mode, which allows him to mimic a person's moves exactly. When said person happens to be a retired professional boxer who acts as his trainer, this is a serious advantage.
• Sensual Slavs: Farra Lemkova, heiress of a Russian oligarchy.
• Serkis Folk: The robots. Max turns it into a gimmick by using Atom to dance pre-round.
• Share the Male Pain: During the Midas vs Noisy Boy fight, Midas punches Noisy Boy in "that spot". Being a robot, Noisy Boy doesn't feel anything, but despite that, the entire crowd flinches and reaches reflexively downward.
• Shoo Out the Clowns: Atom and Max are shown to dance before every fight. They don't do this when Atom goes up against Zeus, likely to highlight the seriousness of the match.
• Shout-Out:
  • Atom's name is a twofer. It belongs to both the robot hero Astro Boy and the Golden Age hero The Atom, a diminutive scrapper who was taught to box, and proceeded to outfight thugs much bigger than him.
  • Charlie's first robot Ambush has some similarities to the blue robot in Rock'Em Sock'Em Robots.
  • The statue standing outside the WRB area closely resembles a Gundam.
  • The final fight ending with a judges decision in favour of the antagonist is likely a nod to the first Rocky movie.
• Sleep Cute: Near the end Charlie climbs into Bailey’s bed to hold her while she sleeps. The smile that spreads across her face tells you how long she’s been waiting for that to happen.
• Sliding Scale of Adaptation Modification: A Type 1. Takes only the concept from Matheson's short story. Otherwise, the film has its own separate characters, themes, and world.
• Soft Glass: Tak Moshido, Zeus' creator, punches through one of the computer screens for Zeus' controls in frustration, with little damage done to his hand.
• Stealth Pun: One of the underground robots Atom fights during his montage is a cowboy-themed boxer named Six Shooter. If one looks closely at Six Shooter's arms, one can see how his biceps are designed to resemble a pistol's revolver. As in his guns. Additionally, when he "fires" his arms, it produces a gunshot sound effect.
• The Stoic: Team Zeus, until they start freaking out when Atom puts up a good fight. Gets worse when Atom starts winning.
• Stone Wall: Atom in his initial function as a sparring robot. He needed to survive even the champions' best hits (that are shown to be easily capable of shattering the parts of actual fighters) but he lacked offensive power, presumably to minimize the repairs needed by said champions after a session. Max's upgrades and Charlie's training turn him into a Lightning Bruiser.
• Suicidal Overconfidence:
  • Charlie loses not one, but two of his robots through his own hubris and errors. He loses his first robot, Ambush, when he actually turns his back to the arena during the fight in order to flirt with a woman, and he loses his second robot, Noisy Boy, when he puts him into a main event bout without even bothering to learn all of the commands first.
  • Zeus' owners were so confident that Atom would lose early in the match, perhaps in the first round, that they did not even bother to make sure Zeus had enough power to last the full five rounds. Towards the end of the match he actually begins to run out of power, allowing Atom to attack with near impunity. Though given he's never had to go further than one round, it's unlikely they ever bothered.
    • Charlie suckers them in using up all battery power. It is likely Zeus could have gone the distance defending. It is part of the rope-a-dope technique. Get a fighter that is way fitter to burn through his stamina.
  • Ricky is so confident that Atom won't last past round one vs Zeus that he tells Finn his exact seat in the stadium so that the can personally bring his money to him. This backfires horribly on him when Finn uses that information to track him when Atom manages to survive to round two.
• Super-Toughness: Atom's biggest advantage; as a sparring robot, he's designed tougher than even top-of-the-line combat models.
• Taste the Rainbow: Each robot incorporates a different theme into its design. Noisy Boy, for example, takes influence from Samurai armor, while Midas has a fitting Greek armor motif to his design.
• Technician Versus Performer:
  • The key to Atom's success. Seemingly every other robot in the world is just a bipedal competitor in Robot Wars. Atom's shadow function enables ex-boxer Charlie to effectively "train" him to "perform" elegant punches, and utilize his years of experience to perceive telegraphed moves. And in the final fight, it enables Charlie to effectively fight Zeus himself - and beat him to a pulp like any pro boxer could any undisciplined juiced street fighter.
  • Tak takes direct control of Zeus in the last round, activating the controls' manual override in a desperate attempt to turn the fight around, making the last part of the fight Tak (Technician) and Charlie (Performer) fighting each other through proxy. Tak is using a console while Charlie uses his own abilities to shadow box.
• Technology Porn: The robots may be beat up or shiny, but they're almost all beautiful in their own way.
• The Tell: In the Twin Cities fight, Charlie sees that a bit of Twin Cities' shoulder armor shifts when it winds up for a punch. Charlie uses this opening to have Atom counter and gain momentum.
• Tempting Fate: "If you fall down here, you'll definitely—" Cue abrupt fall.
• That Poor Car: Atom smashes Blacktop into a car during the montage. Cue the car alarm.
• There Are No Rules: Midas gets the upper hand on Noisy Boy when it starts using illegal moves, Max objects pointing them out but Charlie explains that there are no rules in the underworld.
• Title Drop: Several times. For example, the eponymous "real steel" is the Real Steel boxing tournament.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • "Oh hey, I'm on a cliff? Yeah, I'm just going to stand here RIGHT ON THE VERY EDGE DURING THE RAIN and act coo-WHOOOOAAA!" Only sheer, dumb luck in the form of Atom's arm stops Max falling to his death.
  • "I think I'll pay attention to flirting with this girl instead of the fight, even though my last robot is fighting a creature with no concept of breaks between rounds." Surprise surprise, Ambush promptly gets dismembered by his rather grumpy opponent.
• Trailers Always Spoil:
  • The first half of Noisy Boy vs. Midas was released without editing as one of the later trailers, including the Gold Blooded Killer's comeback.
  • They show Atom mirroring Charlie's moves during Zeus' fight so you knew that the mirror system would be used during the fight.
• Underdogs Never Lose: Averted. Zeus wins in points at the end of the fifth round, but the fact that Atom put up such a strong fight and probably would've won had the match had another round got him the support of the crowd. Atom is even dubbed "The People's Champion", no relation to that other one.
• Unnecessary Roughness: Zeus didn't get penalized for throwing Atom across the ring. In a regular boxing match, he would have gotten a few points docked off. Presumably, this simply isn't a rule in robot boxing, as Noisy Boy was programmed to perform a similar throw as a pre-recorded move.
• Used Future: Invoked in some of the robots, who look like they've seen better days. Mostly applies to underground fighters like Midas and Metro; WRB League robots like Twin Cities and Zeus are well taken care of.
• Victory by Endurance: Downplayed in that Atom didn't win the match. However, the fight against Zeus plays out like this. Atom was designed as a sparring bot, and as such, built to take a ton of punishment, whereas Zeus was designed for overwhelming power, and usually won by decimating his opponents early on in the fight. Because Atom can take that kind of punishment (and because he was "trained" by a master boxer), Atom manages to go the distance and last longer in the Ring than Zeus can. By round five, Zeus is running on empty and actually gets knocked down by Atom. In the end, Zeus has to be saved by the bell and wins on decision. However, it's heavily implied that, had the fight gone on even just a little longer, the trope would have been played completely straight and Zeus would have outright lost to Atom.
• Villainous Breakdown:
  • Not exactly a villain, but Tak loses it when he sees his precious robot taking a fierce beating from Atom. First he drags the technician controlling Zeus from his chair and sits down to control Zeus himself. When Zeus takes a really harsh beating, Tak actually punches through the screen. Later, when the paparazzi tries to interview him, Tak can only breathe into the microphone before storming away.
  • When the Arrogant Kung Fu Guys controlling Twin Cities find Atom a tougher opponent than they expected, they start getting audibly nervous. When Atom's punches cause a systems to crash, Twin Cities' handlers are reduced to desperate, incoherent screams of frustration and shock as the junkyard underdog wipes the floor with their robot.
• Villainy-Free Villain: Team Zeus aren't so much "evil" as much as they are "Arrogant and somewhat unpleasant." About the most overtly nasty thing they do on-screen is act arrogant toward Charlie and Max after they enter the League for the first time, but their ownership of Zeus and dominance of the WRB brings them into conflict with Max and Charlie.
• The Watson: Max is this in his early scenes; it's to him that Charlie explains the history of the WRB, and Noisy Boy's voice control.
• Weak, but Skilled:
  • In every fight, Atom clearly is at a disadvantage in both size and weight. But when your fighting style is provided by a retired pro-boxer compared to the Unskilled, but Strong standard for most bots, you have a recipe for success.
  • Similarly, Midas is thin and wiry compared to the other non-Atom bots in the movie and is quickly overpowered by the larger Noisy Boy, but compensates with a combination of greater range of motion and sheer brutality, disassembling the larger bot like a seasoned street fighter pulling apart a pro boxer as soon as the rules get tossed out of the window.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Max's reaction to finding out that he was "sold" to his aunt and her wealthy husband.
• Wise Beyond Their Years: Max, who not only displays extraordinary technical skills for an 11 year-old, but is also shown to be quite a bit more savvy than his father.
• Would Hurt a Child: Ricky and his men take no issue at beating up Max alongside his dad, in fact, they go down harder on the kid upon learning he's Charlie's son.
• Wrench Wench: Bailey acts as Charlie's mechanic and partner, helping to ensure his latest boxing robots run right. She's the one who helps Max fix Atom up after he's pulled out of the junkyard.
• You Have No Chance to Survive: Most have this attitude towards Atom at first, to the point of betting large sums of money that he won't even survive the first round. They were proved wrong every time. Those betting venture out into Too Dumb to Live territory considering if nothing else, Atom was designed as a training bot and thus was DESIGNED to take obscene amounts of damage and keep going so champion bots could have a consistent and stable sparring partner. They are literally betting on Atom not being able to do the exact function he was designed for.

---