Real Steel/YMMV

• Alternate Character Interpretation: It's really not hard to read the movie's plot as basically glorifying the enslavement of a sapient robot being who isn't really capable of having any real agency in a situation where 'death' is a real risk. Of course, this assumes that Atom is sentient (to which no indication is given other than several inconclusive "hints").
• Awesome Music: "The Wings of Icarus" by Celldweller.
  • Not to mention the score by Danny Elfman.
• Non Sequitur Scene: The hip-hop dance thing before the fights.
  • There's also the scene with Atom seemingly staring at himself in the mirror. It's left to the viewer to determine whether or not he's actually sentient.
• Complete Monster: Ricky actually disqualifies himself as merely this with his tactics before the end of the film. To wit: the man continuously rubs it in Charlie's face he beat him in a boxing match and threatens to beat him up if he doesn't pay up to his end of the bet, which Charlie doesn't do because Ricky allowed Ambush to be completely destroyed even when Charlie threw in the towel. However, what really pushes him into this is when he hires goons to take the money by force. Beating up Charlie for cheating him? Jerkish, but understandable. Beating up Charlie's son who had done nothing wrong?! Completely unforgivable. And what makes his sense of morals far, FAR less than nothing is he laughs his head off, enjoying every second of what misery he's caused, and that when he learns Max's relationship to Charlie, he actually beats him up even more than before. Thank goodness for Laser-Guided Karma.
• Crowning Moment of Funny: Max and Atom's Shadow Mode jog. Being much smaller than Atom, Max is able to nimbly weave around and between obstacles- which Atom sends flying seconds later. The tough bot even dislodges a fire hydrant near the end.
• Designated Hero: Charlie. When he hears about his girlfriend's death and his son, he reacts with no surprise that he had a son 11 years ago, so he knowingly left his girlfriend and son right before he was born. Then he signs him over to the boy's aunt and uncle for 100 grand, furthering the deadbeat dad vibe. Does he pay off all his debts with the money? No. He buys another robot to replace a broken one instead! He then gets the nerve to not pay his rent at the gym he works at, then lambasts the owner for thinking of selling it, claiming her deceased father would be pissed off at her. Then, when the robot gets destroyed and they're looking for replacement parts, he leaves Max in the pouring rain, to carry the new robot he found after surviving a fall off a cliff (This is the first time Charlie showed that he cared for him though). He comes back in the morning which the main female character fails to notice. He softens up to him a bit but that could be just him being profitable to him. There was no reason stated for why he left Max at the beginning and no one minded that this was essentially child abuse.
  • This may be the point-much of the plot is about him learning to be a decent human being after all.
• Ensemble Darkhorse: Noisy Boy is pretty popular among fans.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Seemingly invoked with the Japanese release, due to the popularity of Humongous Mecha in Japan, with what the fact that the first trailer premiered in Japan.
• Growing the Beard: The director behind the Night at the Museum films made this. And it's awesome!
• Hilarious in Hindsight / Harsher in Hindsight: Your Mileage May Vary, but consider the film's ending. Atom puts up a good fight, but Zeus wins by vote and retains his title. Now think about the recent Pacquiao/Marquez fight. Of course, Rocky is another obvious parallel.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Ricky already established himself as a Jerkass by threatening to beat the shit out of Charlie if he doesn't pay up on his bet, but he only truly damned himself when he brings two or three other thugs to jump Charlie and Max and, upon learning that Charlie is now able to pay him back, beats the shit out of him anyway, not even giving one fuck about the money. And then he and his boys steal all the money. This establishes him as the most evil character in the entire film, so much that he thoroughly deserved to lose on that huge bet he made at the titular tournament.
    • Not to mention his thugs had no problem beating up a child.
    • Oh, and just when you think he can't get any worse? When he learns from Max that Charlie's his father, he decides to make the remainder of Charlie's life even less than an inch. So bad he doesn't even qualify as a Complete Monster.
  • YMMV, of course, but you might think Charlie himself crosses this early on in the film. Think about it- not only did he leave his then-girlfriend to raise Max alone because he couldn't handle being a father, when the time comes for him to sign over custody of Max, who he doesn't even want, he extorts $100,000 from the kid's uncle for him- literally selling his own son. This makes his eventual Heel Face Turn have more weight than one might initially think.
• Older Than They Think: The film's very premise is One Must Fall 2097.
  • Nor has there been much mention of "Steel," the Twilight Zone episode the film is based on. Or the Richard Matheson story that was based on.
    • The film does take a few elements from the Matheson short story: robot boxers replacing humans, the main character is a former prizefighter, the climactic challenge is between the protagonist's fight and a current champion, and that the protagonist physically fights the robot himself. In the book this last part doesn't end well, while the film is a straight up underdog sports movie.
  • The premise of humans being replaced in fighting sports was previously done on screen in 1989 with Arena, with aliens replacing humans instead of robots. Robot Jox also definitely has a hand in the proceedings too.
• Spiritual Licensee: See the internet's pet name for the film: Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots: The Movie. Alternatively...
• X Meets Y: Rocky meets Astro Boy.^[1]
  • Separates him from MOST other robots. His advantages are rare, but far from unique. People are surprised to seem them on such an old robot, but know of their existence in general.
  • Alternatively, Rocky meets Medabots.^[2]
  • Moviebob describes it as having influences of Pokemon and Megaman.
• 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!
  • Also Charlie just leaves Max on the second, far more deadly cliff to unearth the robot, despite there being mud everywhere which would be far too easy to slip on and fall, again. At no point does anyone think, "Hey, this robot isn't going anywhere, maybe we could come back in the DAYTIME when it ISN'T RAINING FLOODS."
    • Not to disagree that this was a major asshole move by Charlie, but they couldn't come back in the daytime; Charlie had broken into that scrapyard in order to steal parts.
• Unfortunate Implications: As awesome as his design is, it hasn't gone unnoticed that Noisy Boy has a pretty stereotypical Japanese design (samurai helmet, kanji, etc.). On the other hand, it is a Japanese-made Robot, and Greek-made robot Midas has the whole Spartan Warrior thing going on...
• Visual Effects of Awesome - Hell. F#$king. Yes.
  • To elaborate, the robots themselves are realized through a mixture of animatronics and motion capture. Both of these are done perfectly, and the whole thing looks amazing.

1. ↑ Atom has a gift separating him from other robots, and with that in mind, the name Atom elevates this to a Shout-Out.
2. ↑ Both of the main robots are obsolete models, but are able to outmatch their opponents due to rare advantages.