I ran all the way home from shooting to watch THIS?
So two years ago, Disney previewed a Light Cycle teaser of TRON at ComicCon and I immediately had a geekgasm, everything about looked amazing and I was so psyched to see TRON: Legacy. Now I've never seen the original film, nor do I know anything about the premise, but based on what I saw last night.. Disney just blew a huge chunk of money making a 2 hour long music video.
The film is about Sam, son of Kevin Flynn played by Jeff Bridges from the original TRON investigating his father's disappearance when he gets a page from his dad's abandoned arcade and gets sucked into The Grid, the world within a video-game that his father created in the original TRON. There he finds out that his dad has been trapped there by a digital incarnation of himself who turned against him and is causing all kinds of hell in The Grid.
Reviews for the movie have been extremely polarized lately and I come to offer you a better understanding of TRON: Legacy. In a way, this film is amazing and in another, it is a sausagefest of black lights, Olivia Wilde and a non-existent story. It's really a matter of perspective when it comes to Legacy.
The visual effects in TRON is mind-blowing. This is that kind of special effects that was as flashy as Transformers yet pristine like
Avatar, creating a magnificent world of a video game come to life on the big screen. The film starts rolling with a very badass disc-fighting scene and then a Light Cycle race which were just absolute eye candy for the audience. The action scenes in this film are amazing the only problem is, most of it happens in the first 40 minutes of the film.
The other half of the film is laden with boring, nonsensical exposition and a disgusting performance by Michael Sheen to keep the audience entertained before the film finally switches back to action mode in the last 15 minutes. If you're gonna make a movie with a good story, then have a good story and good characters,
If you're gonna make a movie with a bad story, then have a lot of action to distract me. And on that note, TRON: Legacy failed at both in some levels.
But I gotta give praise to the entire technical crew behind the film. TRON: Legacy is just so gorgeous that just watching the empty world of The Grid with no actors or story in it is already worth the admission ticket. The film's special effects, sound editing, editor and cinematographer are definite shoe in's for the Oscars along with the art directors and possibly Daft Punk who made a surprisingly compatible, heart-stopping score that went so well with the action scenes.
In terms of characters, there are lots of issues. I loved the character of Clu and I thought Jeff Bridges and the effects team did an amazing job of putting him together, but the other characters in the film, particularly Beau Garrett, Olivia Wilde and Garrett Hedlund, who served more of set pieces to the action and visuals. The Kevin Flynn character himself was inconsistent, switching from a zen Jedi Master like person to an all-out hippie Big Lebowski. And the biggest disappointment of all is the appearance of Tron himself. I will say no more, only that if you're gonna have a sci-fi icon come back into a sequel named after him... you gotta do something more with the guy. Just saying is all.
So yes it's all a matter of perspective. Personally, I loved TRON: Legacy because I came into it knowing nothing of the Grid universe and only expected to see boundary busting visuals. On that level, Legacy was a fantastic film. However, I cannot deny that this was a severly flawed blockbuster with gaping storylines and a multitude of throwaway performances.
RATING: 5/10
