There may only be so much you can do with a Rise of the Robots-style battle royal, but here’s a great kids movie nonetheless. Real Steel is loud and rambunctious, with more heart than most of the stories directed their way. You might be surprised to hear how much it has in common with Wall-E. Look into that dusty robot’s face and tell me you don’t see a little Pixar behind those eyes.

Real Steel takes us on a lap of the autograph circuit with former boxer Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman), only he’s not the star attraction: his 1000lb robot is. The year is 2016 or so, and the sport of the day is boxing between hulking great machines. Some are brawler types, subsisting on a diet of no-holds-barred underground cage fights, while others compete in the big leagues. What context we have is of a sport that has overtaken all others. Giant stadiums are given over to the glitzy spectacles; to the sponsorship deals that adorn the merchandise, and the young fans who clamour for their metallic heroes as they once did baseball stars.

The Babe Ruth of the near-future is reigning champion Zeus, who is commanded by a fleet of Korean haircuts and the Brylcream they never leave home without. Their stylised, show-no-mercy aura is traditional arch nemesis fare, and it works just fine. Charlie once dreamt of competing in such fights, back before he wound up showboating for cash at a travelling fair. Sparring with a literal bull isn’t exactly what he had in mind for a career, nor that of his robot Ambush, whom he watches helplessly being tossed from the pen with a $20,000 bounty on his compacted head.

On the run from a shadowy promoter, Charlie heads to the city courthouse. A woman from his past has died, leaving him to care for a son he has never met. Ever the noble father, a deal is struck: in two months time, he is to deliver the boy to an aunt and uncle in New York, who are waiting with a cheque for $100,000. In the meantime, things get complicated. Young Max is far too precious and told-you-so, even when Charlie deserves it – which is often. The man doesn’t take any more kindly to lectures than his Japanese robot does instructions not to get hit upside the head. What they need is an older robot: a no-hoper they can work on together, perhaps find themselves a montage or three. So enters tomboy mechanic Bailey (Evangeline Lilly), as the cute gym sweats girl who just so happens to repair broken-down fighters and fall hopelessly for this lump’s Han Solo charms. They have a fun chemistry, although he is Hugh Jackman: a leading man who generates magnetism the way others do static.

Their championship hopes lay in a Frankenstein creation from the junk yard. He’s kinda muddy lookin’. As I watched, I had a recurring vision of an emphysema bot, huddled from the rain in an abandoned warehouse on the edge of town. He would have hauled up there sometime after the war, right around the time a new breed of robots rendered his kind obsolete. He’d sit upon a crate of WD-40 and tell stories about the old days; maybe throw in a little advice for the young upstart. He’d even have a fun little Randy Newman song named after him. Buddy And The Knockaround Gang, it would say. He’d be happy.

The whole ‘Jake Lloyd meets C3PO’ thing puts a fun spin on an old staple. The machines themselves are of a more agile and human construction than any of Michael Bay’s robotic marionettes, Transformers included. It helps, I think, that they’re restricted to mimicking the moves of their human operators, and can’t fly away at the first sign of trouble. They get broken up and defeated; slumped in their respective corners, begging for juice. They aren’t exactly the killing machines of our Skynet future, but they blend in pretty well with the grimy areas they’re deployed to. Optimus Prime always seemed a little too sparkle fresh.

For what it is, criticisms are pretty hard to come by. Bailey is reduced to the role of bar-propping commentator when she ought to be ringside. At two hours long, the film might be a little much for younger viewers. In either case, it’s mostly too much fun to worry about. A good-time fight to robot stardom, Real Steel is effortlessly entertaining, and even pulls a Rocky VI on us. Part Raging Bull, part Step Up 2: The Streets. All good fun.