Midler's scenery - chewing turn as the brassy central character remains virtually the only worthwhile element within Stella's overlong running time, as the movie suffers from a fairly stale narrative that's compounded by an absence of compelling supporting figures and an often
unreasonably deliberate pace.
There's little doubt that Real Steel's biggest problem is its excessively
deliberate pace and
unreasonably overlong running time, as filmmaker Shawn Levy, working from John Gatins» screenplay, has infused the movie with an incongruously epic sensibility that all - too - often threatens to negate its positive attributes - with the fairly pointless (and surprisingly unpleasant) robot - vs - bull brawl that opens the picture effectively setting a tone of regrettable sloppiness (ie Charlie goes through two robots before settling on his final fighter).