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How entertaining? ★★☆☆☆
Thought provoking? ★☆☆☆☆ 5 December 2010
This a movie review of TRON: LEGACY. |
“Make it there alive, and he'll find you,” Quorra
In 1982 a ground-breaking special effects movie was released. It was called TRON. Jeff Bridges was Kevin Flynn, a gifted technology whizz-kid dematerialised via an innovative laser into a computer environment (the Grid), which had been taken over by Master Control, an artificially intelligent software gathering up programs from around America in an attempt to become supremely powerful. These programs are sentient but not as strong. Kevin teams up with the titular Tron (played by Bruce Boxleitner) and Yori (Cindy Morgan) to defeat this tyranny. Far ahead of its time, TRON tackled the gaming world and the issue of corporate monopoly in a dazzlingly designed movie.
Twenty-eight years later we find Kevin’s son, Sam (Garett Hedlund), ostensibly a 27 year old orphan. Sam’s mother died when he was a boy, and we are told that his father disappeared soon after. After a page (yeah, you read that right) from Kevin’s old workplace, Sam finds himself similarly dematerialised into the Grid. Here he finds a new dictator program in charge, Clu, this time actually created by Kevin to make the world a better place but instead gone wrong. Unsurprisingly, surely, to everyone in the audience, Sam finds his father (played again by Jeff Bridges). The reunion is bizarrely unemotional. They team up with the badass Quorra (Olivia Wilde), and plan to return to our world and terminate Clu from here.
In 1982 a ground-breaking special effects movie was released. It was called TRON. Jeff Bridges was Kevin Flynn, a gifted technology whizz-kid dematerialised via an innovative laser into a computer environment (the Grid), which had been taken over by Master Control, an artificially intelligent software gathering up programs from around America in an attempt to become supremely powerful. These programs are sentient but not as strong. Kevin teams up with the titular Tron (played by Bruce Boxleitner) and Yori (Cindy Morgan) to defeat this tyranny. Far ahead of its time, TRON tackled the gaming world and the issue of corporate monopoly in a dazzlingly designed movie.
Twenty-eight years later we find Kevin’s son, Sam (Garett Hedlund), ostensibly a 27 year old orphan. Sam’s mother died when he was a boy, and we are told that his father disappeared soon after. After a page (yeah, you read that right) from Kevin’s old workplace, Sam finds himself similarly dematerialised into the Grid. Here he finds a new dictator program in charge, Clu, this time actually created by Kevin to make the world a better place but instead gone wrong. Unsurprisingly, surely, to everyone in the audience, Sam finds his father (played again by Jeff Bridges). The reunion is bizarrely unemotional. They team up with the badass Quorra (Olivia Wilde), and plan to return to our world and terminate Clu from here.
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I was so looking forward to this sequel, because of: Jeff Bridges (sandwiched between his Oscar-winning turn in CRAZY HEART and his inevitable Academy Award nomination for the Coens’ remake of TRUE GRIT); stunning looking production design and effects; and Daft Punk on music duties. I am crushed at how poor TRON: LEGACY is. The dialogue is clunky and the acting stilted (except for Michael Sheen who hams it up so awfully, it is as if it’s his first time as a bad guy). Bridges looks a little lost. The filmmakers appear to think they should play up to what they perceive as his BIG LEBOWSKI persona, so he does things like meditate and talk cod–Zen rubbish.
The above is only the beginning of the problems. Instead of allowing an audience to revel in the beauty of the costumes and striking backgrounds, as well as enjoy the thrills, the action sequences are edited so fast and incoherently that you can’t appreciate what’s going on. Then there are the logical head-scratchers. The moment Kevin disappeared, the first place anyone should have checked was the Grid, why didn’t they? In the Grid, programs are eating and drinking – why do they need to? If they don’t need to, why are they imitating their “users”? They also seem to sleep. I can understand machinery “resting” as they have moving parts, but why does software need to? The next weird thing is the effects used to make Bridges look younger. The result is a similar dead-eyed impression as the humans in THE POLAR EXPRESS. Contrast Brad Pitt in THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON.
The movie is called TRON: LEGACY, but the character and impact of Tron is not talked about, portrayed or analysed. Kevin Flynn speaks of a “miracle”, that a new digital species had accidentally been created. Intriguing, most definitely. Then in the next breath, he tells us of their genocide. There is no real representation of this new species, or what they are, or why they are special. A couple of buildings are destroyed by Clu to signify their end. That’s it. Err, ok. The biggest kicker for me is that Kevin Flynn survived Master Control and is meant to be a genius, yet he didn’t see the creation of a super-program like Clu as a problem. TRON: LEGACY suffers from the worst elements of the STAR WARS prequels, MATRIX sequels and I, ROBOT. The striking visual effects, cinematography, production design and music (Daft Punk’s score is seriously stylish) are indisputable, but that isn’t enough. Hugely disappointing.
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