Title: TRON: Legacy (2010)
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Cast: Jeff Bridges, Garrett Hedlund, Olivia Wilde
Review:
TRON:Legacy is one of the most anticipated films of 2010, and most of that anticipation comes from the fact that this film is a sequel to Walt Disney’s groundbreaking science fiction film TRON (1982). Like many people, I don’t think that the original film is anything amazing in terms of storytelling or action adventure (actually me thinks the film is kind of slooow) but it did offer up some interesting visuals. Hell, it was also one of the first films to ever use computer animation, along with Disney’s The Black Hole (1979). Computer animation has grown by leaps and bounds since 1982, so this new TRON flick has the task of improving the effects we saw on the original film and if it attempts to be as ground breaking film as its predecessor, then it will try and take computer effects to a whole new level. Did this new film achieve its goals?
TRON: Legacy tells the story of Sam Flynn, son of Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) the creator of one of the most successful games ever, TRON. Sam, his son has always lived his life plagued by the fact that one day his father said “see you later”, got on his motorcycle and then disappeared from the face of the earth. If you saw the first TRON then you know that Kevin Flynn disappeared because he inserted himself into the TRON program and then was unable to escape. The computer program where Kevin inserts himself into, know as “The Grid” in the film, is a Matrix of sorts where a whole different society exists. It basically is a mirror image of earth. One night, Sam decides to fool around with his fathers old computers and accidently transports himself in The Grid, same as his father all those years ago. Now he must try and adapt and survive in this new world that is apparently being run by a despotic ruler named CLU. Will Sam ever reconnect with his father?
The thing about this new movie is that it’s not the end all be all that a lot of people are expecting. First off, let me warn you guys about the supposed 3-D. It’s yet another scam. It’s not 3-D at all, and that my friends pissed me the hell off. It pulled a Clash of the Titans (2010) on us! I felt cheated, there was no need to “convert” this movie to 3-D because the effect simply does not work. The movie had amazing visuals, but they weren’t 3-D. You’ll enjoy this one just fine without having to pay the extra cash, so do yourself a favor and see this one 2-D. I’m sick and tired of studios doing this to the audience, cheating them out of their hard earned cash. No doubt many people will go see it expecting to see some mind blowing 3-D, and I don’t blame them since Disney has hyped the 3-D angle in all the previews. Sadly, audiences will be disappointed, same as I was. Hell, even Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010) had better 3-D effects then this new TRON movie. I blame Disney for hiping this one as the end all be all of 3-D films, when in fact it was anything but that! You just know something is fishy when the film starts out with a disclaimer letting you know that this film was originally intended to be seen in 2-D and not on 3-D.
Aside from that, we have the script which was extremely similar to other films. First of all the movie is kind of, sort of a remake. This movie pulls an Evil Dead 2 on us by offering a slightly improved, bigger budget, slightly altered story wise, yet extremely similar version of the original film. It is a sequel because they do reference events from the first film, but when you look at it, the film plays out exactly the same way the original one did. Person gets sent to “the grid”, person gets a new suit, has to participate in some games and win, and then he must travel to a portal where he will finally face off the evil despotic leader. It’s the same damn movie step by step. We have the disk fight, we have the motorcycle race, they even have to travel on that ship that travels on a beam of light. It was too similar. On top of that, the film has elements from The Dark Knight and The Matrix, right down to having Sam Flynn be the heir to a big company and not wanting to accept responsibility. Right down to having to reprogram everyone so they wont continue being slaves to the system and all that. I did like the films themes, I mean, I’m a sucker for a film where the good guys go up against an evil ruler, but even I must admit that that’s been done to death.
It does play with some original themes. Like for example Clu, the films villain represents the oppressive government who programs everyone and doesn’t allow anyone to be free. Plus he is amassing a private army! That’s a sign of an evil ruler if there ever was one! So when Clu (the evil ruler) learns that the media (run by a guy named Zuse) will be allowing some rebels to get their word out about starting a revolution, Clu decides to wipe out the entertainment mogul. I thought this was an interesting way of talking about the control of the media by governments who want to control the publics opinion. Governments know the power that media and entertainment has. Even films are censored because they know how powerful films are in terms of getting ideas through to people. So I enjoyed how the film commented on that.
Jeff Bridges as Kevin Flynn was at times funny, especially because he was talking like a hippy most of the time, and it reminds me of ‘El Duderino’ himself from The Big Lebowski. He represented the hippies from the 60’s and 70’s who were a hell of a lot more rebellious then the kids nowadays. In a way, the film is telling the younger generation to stand up against the evil, to speak up, to change things. It’s telling them not to stay comfortable at home playing video games and watching movies, go out there and give a damn about what’s going on in the world or the bad guys are going to win. I did like that about its message. So what we got here ladies and gentlemen is a subversive film from the folks at Disney. So that means, its subversive “light”.
One thing the film does get right were its visual effects which as expected, were good. Technically speaking, the film is great. The colors, the cgi, and just the look of the film were entertaining and beautiful to look at. Everything is slick looking and futuristic, the colors are awesome. The red is the bad guys, the blue the good guys. But on thing did let me down about the special effects. I didn’t like how the CLU character looked. He is supposed to look like a younger version of Jeff Bridges, but in my opinion it just didn’t work. I mean, the performance looks stiff somehow. I thought they would be breaking new ground with that effect, but it turned out to be another stiff performance from a CGI character. I guess this movie proves once and for all that real actors will never be replaced by CGI characters, no way no how!
Another thing they got right was the music, by Daft Punk. I’m a huge fan of Daft Punk and enjoyed their futuristic sounding beats and sounds. They even cameo in the movie at one point during a sequence that takes place inside of a disco. Unfortunately, at times the soundtrack tries way to hard to imitate the soundtrack for The Dark Knight. I mean, I think it could be considered freaking plagiarism as far as I’m concerned, but I dont know if Daft Punk was involved in composing the whole soundtrack or just parts of it.
Daft Punk make a cameo
So my friends, what we got here is a decent sequel, but not the end all be all that we all thought it was going to be. I don’t know exactly what it was about it, but it just didn’t blow me away. Maybe my expectations for it were too freaking high or something. Maybe the lame script didn’t gel very well with the state of the art visuals? Maybe it was the fact that this was director Joseph Kosinski’s first time directing a film and therefore failed at creating something really exciting and engaging? In any case, my final words on this film are that it was style over substance every step of the way.
Rating: 3 1/2 out of 5
