The first trailer for the Hugh Jackman-starring Real Steel has hit the internet at YouTube, and you can watch it embedded below. It is… not at all what I was expecting. Advertised as a father and son story that was also kind of a real-life Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots, Real Steel is directed by Night at the Museum mastermind Shawn Levy, which led me to anticipate something brightly colored and maybe a little goofy. What we see here, though, is like Transformers filtered through The Wrestler, with both some dazzling robot effects (many of them actual, practical robots) and some surprising grit. Check it out below and we'll talk after.

Talking up the film last fall before shooting started, Levy promised it would be true to the Richard Matheson short story that inspired it, and "more Rocky than Transformers: "It's faithful to the [original Richard Matheson] story in that that story was very much about a down-on-his-luck, slightly desperate journeyman who works in this robot boxing sport and who is desperately needing redemption and one last shot." Jackman is played a washed-up boxer who finds new career hopes in coaching (and probably building?) the boxing robots that the world is interested in now. As much as the robots add a high-tech glitz to the trailer, it all looks fairly traditional otherwise, which is another thing that makes this trailer so intriguing and hard to pin down.

For more on Real Steel, including brand new images from the film, check out the Blend Film Database. The movie opens October 7, 2011.