Iron ring What, in principle, is a film adaptation in a family blockbuster of one of the episodes of “Twilight Zone” (and one episode of “The Simpsons”), actually combines a huge number of homages to various boxing films like “Rocky”, and in fact looks like a modernized version of the family picture “Without Strength” (all with the same Stallone, by the way), only here armwrestling was replaced by boxing, and even between huge mechanical wrestlers. The iron ring and battle arena become a place where exciting fights and spectacular ones unfold. Such battles, despite all the spectacular, failed to outdo or at least replace the “Transformers”, however, this was hardly the goal of the creators. But to create some interesting analogue, continuing to develop the theme of robot-battles in cinema, really succeeded.
Disney actually shot a kind of new genre - "children's action movie." And if the “childhood horror” phenomenon is not too rare, then “Living Steel” almost in a novelty very successfully combines the motifs of a family picture and action action, presenting a truly rare alloy, and becoming a unique phenomenon. Something similar has already been done in the masterpiece remake of “Witch Mountain”, but there the picture was not so full of battles, while the flying pieces of still chewing robot fighters raise the bar of cruelty to a completely different level. Well, the beautiful and spectacular “I am the fourth” should be attributed not to children, but already teenage fighters.
This, by the way, does not mean that “Living Steel” can appeal only to children, rather the opposite – family cinema has finally become fully family (well, in this case, still more for fathers and sons than for the fair sex), when the exciting spectacle and the child will fascinate and the adult will not be bored.
Moreover, Disney seems to have finally begun to differentiate the audience by its projects. Rapunzel is for girls, Living Steel is for boys. No, however, nothing prevents you from watching both wonderful pictures and both, but the truth is that not every boy needs a fairy tale about a long-haired princess (albeit full of adventure, humor and brilliant animation), and not every little lady will want to watch how huge robots in the ring rip off each other’s arms and heads. There will always be exceptions to the rule, but the main focus of the paintings does not change.
Unfortunately, "Living Steel", as well as "Rapunzel" at the end begin to slide into a kind of "new trend of Disney", where instead of the standard sweet-tasty happy ending, twist some completely unnecessary feints, with a claim to originality. But “Living steel” problems with a not enough successful ending is not enough, the film for some reason is even devoid of an epilogue, which is able to chew the fate of the characters in detail in a pleasant way. Of course, to launch the credits on a spectacularly pathetic stage is also a successfully working technique, and he must break the audience’s ovation. But then they would add something after or in the middle of the credits. Well, in principle, for this film really want to continue. And judging by the announcements, the studio is already planning it for 2014.
In general, despite the blurred ending and some illogicality of individual plot elements, “Living Steel” by Sean Levy is a delightful combat action about the battles of huge robots to the delight of the public, with the motives of family values and morality permeating all this. A great entertaining movie, not just for the whole family, but for fathers and sons, and for all lovers of robots and battles between these steel giants. I didn’t even get a little bit of it.
9 out of 10
Original
