Three Things To Watch Instead of Reel Steel This Week
Shawn Levy’s Real Steel will be coming to theaters this weekend. It looks pretty awful. It seems like one of those movies that you’re shocked got made. What’s more shocking than the film’s existence is that the reviews for it are insanely positive. Regardless, I’m still not sure if this is something that I want to see. The more I read about the movie, the more I wish it was something else. If you find yourself somewhere in the middle, wanting to see something fun but without the risk of an expensive night out at the movies, here are the three similar alternatives to Real Steel.
Clue (1985)
It’s been an on going joke that Real Steel is “Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots: The Movie“. I even heard a rumor that Touchstone found the movie so similar that they purchased the rights to Rock ’em Sock ’em Robots to avoid lawsuit. This is not true however. In fact, Mattel has teamed up with Mandeville films to develop an official Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots movie but claim to be having difficulty moving forward on it due to the Real Steel similarities. I think this might be a little off and I’d be willing to guess that the real issue is that a movie about a board game seems like a bad idea. We’ve already got Battleship on the way and Candyland and Oujia board movies in the works.
While I admit that movies based on board games seem like an awful idea, one of my favorite movies is Clue. Clue was the first ever film based on a board game and will probably end up being the best movie ever made out of a board game. The film was simply better than it had any right to be. While it received mostly mixed reviews and came a few thousand dollars short of its budget on release, Clue has become a cult classic.
The film takes advantage of placing the film against the McCarthy era backdrop of 1954 and fills the film with witty history jokes and Marx Brothers level puns. To create even more mystery (and fun, I suppose) the filmmakers gave the film 3 different endings, making it so people would want to see the movie more than once in order to view all three endings. On DVD you have the option to randomly select an ending or all three at once. I recommend the latter if you’ve never seen it before. Universal has announced that they plan to remake Clue for a 2013 release under the direction of Gore Verbinski. Based on the humor of his feature film debut Mouse Hunt, he might actually give us a quality remake.
The Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983)
But Real Steel isn’t based on Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots. It’s actually based on Richard Matheson’s (of Twilight Zone and I Am Legend fame) short story Steel (and no, not the basis for the Shaquille O’Neal film). The story Steel became an excellent episode of the Twilight Zone starring Lee Marvin. While it’s a good episode of Twilight Zone, it doesn’t even crack my top 20 favorite episodes.
If I could see a full length episode of any Twilight Zone episode I’d rather see Walking Distance or Long Distance Call. But since neither of those is happening, I recommend seeing Twilight Zone: The Movie. While one of the segments is a little underwhelming, the film in general is quite enjoyable if for no other reasons than Joe Dante’s take on It’s a Good Life and John Lithgow’s performance in Nightmare at 20,000 Feet. Sadly, three people were killed in the making of the film, which did just average at the box office. The financial return was enough to relaunch a new TV series, but not enough to make another Twilight Zone movie. That’s extremely disappointing because I watch reruns of the show and try to think up what I’d put in my ultimate Twilight Zone the Movie Part 2.
Arena (1989)
Regardless, the trailer for Real Steel didn’t make me think Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots nor The Twilight Zone. It didn’t even make me think “Oh it’s Rocky with Robots”. Instead, it made me think of my favorite Underdog Sports movie: A Sci-Fi film from 1989 film entitled Arena.
Set in 4038, the universe is entertained by an intergalactic boxing sport called “THE ARENA”. The movie stars eventual soap opera star Paul Satterfield as a short order cook at a space station. After getting into a fight with a customer (and Arena Fighter) named Fang, he is approached to become the first human in 50 years to compete in The Arena.
I used to love this movie as a kid. But recently I saw it again on Netflix instant watch. It’s enjoyable… but far from great. There’s a lot of potential for crazy over the top fight sequences but instead the film focuses on the “corruption of The Arena”. It’s not like we’re watching this movie about aliens fighting each other to the death for its dialogue. We just want some bad ass fights involving weird ass aliens. Every trailer for Real Steel makes me wish that it was a remake of Arena.
Regardless, my prediction is that Real Steel is going to score big no matter whether you stay at home and watch (well, maybe not if you account for inflation). And according to advance word, Real Steel is more fun than it has any right to be. It’ll may even be better than any of my suggestions. But I’ve offered you three solid and similar alternatives just in case you don’t feel man (or robot or alien) enough to step into the ring this weekend.
