Think of Real Steel as Robot Rocky with a heartfelt father/son overlay and you can't go wrong.
- Jim Schembri, The Age (Australia), October 18, 2011
Its remote-controlled emotional responses leave little room for genuine uplift.
- Bruce Diones, New Yorker, October 17, 2011
Flashy and smashy, with some great paternal chemistry Real Steel is hugely derivative yet pretty enjoyable.
- , Film4, October 13, 2011
It's an incredibly cynical movie, written and acted by robots, and boasting the most flagrant piece of product-placement for a certain soft drink.
- Peter Bradshaw, Guardian [UK], October 13, 2011
Giant Robots Punching Each Other: The Movie, starring Hugh Jackman.
- Robbie Collin, Daily Telegraph, October 13, 2011
Satisfyingly sturdy and no-nonsense, a multiplex monster smartly constructed from tried-and-trusted parts.
- Tom Huddleston, Time Out, October 11, 2011
It's not quite in Balboa's weight class, but Real Steel at least has some heft.
- James White, Empire Magazine, October 09, 2011
Thanks to an admittedly corny script, some amazing fight scenes, and a terrific cast, "Real Steel's" actually a winner by split decision.
- Richard Roeper, Richard Roeper.com, October 07, 2011
Surely a story as elementary and essentially derivative as this one could be told in less than 127 minutes.
- Eric D. Snider, Film.com, October 07, 2011
They should call this overloud, underwhelming movie Real Steal.
- Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor, October 07, 2011
Aas the plot proceeds from boy-meets-dad verbal sparring to an uneasy peace to the underdog-vs.- champion title bout, it becomes increasingly easy to forgive its many nicks.
- Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post, October 07, 2011
Real Steel is a blast, an unabashed crowd-pleaser that mixes Rocky, Transformers, video games and father-son bonding to great, if corny, effect.
- Tom Long, Detroit News, October 07, 2011
Real Steel is a very strange spectacle, but only sometimes as fun as it sounds.
- Jason Di Rosso, MovieTime, ABC Radio National, October 07, 2011
The story remains sadly mired in botdom, which leads to some boredom.
- Mary F. Pols, TIME Magazine, October 07, 2011
It's 10 percent lovable underdog hokum, 23 percent sentimental family drama and 67 percent rivet-popping punch-ups.
- Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune, October 07, 2011
Battling to be heard above the metal-on-metal clangour is a heartwarming (read: terribly soppy) story of a broken family.
- Anthony Quinn, Independent, October 21, 2011
The fight scenes themselves are dead dull. Two motorised robots slugging it out? Big deal!
- Antonia Quirke, Financial Times, October 13, 2011
Big, dumb, but certainly fun.
- Lewis Bazley, Little White Lies, October 13, 2011
The Woman is a slow-burning incendiary device, a brutal satire on the sanctity of the nuclear family and its conservative "values."
- Budd Wilkins, Slant Magazine, October 10, 2011
At the time of writing, this is definitely a real film and not a satirical story on the Onion News Network.
- Charlie Lyne, Ultra Culture, October 10, 2011
