"You're messing with my zen thing, man." - Kevin Flynn
I've seen the majority of the original Tron film from the 1980s. Watching it, I thought that at the time Tron was a landmark for science fiction filmmaking. The virtual reality world the film presents was fascinating and extremely revolutionary. It paved the way for many other ideas of similar nature. Looking back at this moment, I'd say that in modern times, with all new kinds of technology in the business of film, you couldn't really leave a world like this alone. That's what happens with Tron: Legacy; it takes the atmosphere of the first film and makes as original as it was when first presented in the 80s. It's very refreshing.
The film continues the story of the first Tron's character, Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges). After his success following the first film's story, Flynn is a leading corporate game developer who has found a way to reinvigorate The Grid world of the Tron games. Unfortunately, once he does he goes missing. Years later, his son Sam (Garrett Hedlund) takes time off from his corporate espionage hobby to investigate an apparent message from Kevin. This leads him to one of the coolest arcades I've seen (mostly because I haven't seen one in a long time) where he himself is transported to The Grid. Here, Sam must find his father and help him to defeat a program doppleganger named CLU, who seeks to "perfect" The Grid, before he escapes and perfects our world. They also must protect Kevin's program apprentice Quorra (Olivia Wilde), who is mysteriously crucial to her world and ours. So grab a disc and hop on to your Light Cycle. We're in for a ride.
The entire Grid world in the movie is something to truly be admired. It almost reminds me of black white movies with its highly saturated and crisp light and shadow effects that basically is the structure of the world. Light Cycle battles have never been so cool. Where in the first film it seemed like we were watching people almost in some sort of simulation, here we actually feel like were riding on one of these things. And there is plenty of new things too. The bizarre, building-like helicopters, or the Light Gliders, it was all cool.
I will be honest, I was excited for the movie but did not think it was going to be that good just the same. I, like most people I knew, were going to see it for it's clearly amazing technical attributes. To my surprise, though, I really enjoyed this movie. The visuals and soundtrack was monumental (and I'm not using that word lightly). Daft Punk creates an electric ambience and pace that drives the movie more than the plot sometimes. Some visuals and set pieces brought to mind films such as Dark City, The Matrix, and 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The acting was not oscar worthy or anything but it at least interested me and impressed me in some ways. Jeff Bridges shines here, remarkably, as two characters: one is a man who has attained a God status while also being an outcast, he's wise, cool, but regretful; the other is a cold, angsty tyrant whose existence was based upon a flawed purpose. Garrett Hedlund was actually very believable as Sam, the rebellious son. To my surprise, I liked him, though he's had more impressive roles, of course. Bruce Boxleitner reprises his role from the original Tron to play both Flynn's friend Alan, still in the gaming business in our world, and as Tron (you know, the title character the movie could care less about) who has also fallen victim to Clu's vision of perfection. I was very amazed that of all of the characters, Olivia Wilde's Quorra was the one I found most interesting. Come now, we all knew going in that Wilde was going to sell us on this movie. She is very beautiful after all. But no, Quorra was a fascinating sort of character. She was almost that classic anime archetype, the sweet and cute badass who is also very special. She was fun to watch, and not in a perverted way. Of course a movie this cool, needs some character to send it over the top. It needs something shiny amongst this deep and dark stuff that the kids can go crazy over. And in that, we get Michael Sheen as Castor, an eccentric night club owner in The Grid. It just goes to show that every Disney owned movie these days can not escape a freaking Mickey or Goofy. For Pirates of the Caribbean we get Jack Sparrow. For Alladin, we get The Robin Williams Genie (and many other Robin Williams voiced characters. For Tron: Legacy, we get Castor. I mean, Michael Sheen is a great actor, everyone knows he is, but he's a bit like Nicholas Cage where he's great at one point and outrageous at ten other points. It isn't bad per se, just overbearing in such a short time. At least his character is resolved the way the audience wants it to be.
I do not need to say that Joseph Kosinski's direction is top notch, because it really is. He kept most everything balanced (save for mystery and explanation of course), but unfortunately this means the movie was a bit understated. By understated I mean it doesn't impact the viewers as well on all levels. No one can say that the technical aspects of the movie were underplayed by the story and characters. The special effects were in sync with the world's atmosphere, therefore they were believable and amazing. I really liked that this movie can kind of stand alone, because you don't necessarily have to watch the first Tron to understand this Tron. Despite a fairly unfocused and needlessly complex explanations (did I mention the guys who wrote this were Lost writers), I thought the movie had strong dialogue, good characters (save one), and gripping storytelling. The movie is a straight adventure and that's what I loved about it.
So all in all, Tron: Legacy is certainly not a great movie but it is very good. If you want to have a lot of fun kicking off 2011, than by all means see this movie. I'm sure it'll get you more pumped for movies this year than Season of the Witch. It's really good, surprised the hell out of me how good it was. I guess I was a bit wrong to underestimate it. Understand I saw the first trailer for this mid 2009 and thought it looked incredible, then I saw Avatar and thought nothing could impress me after that. A Scott Pilgrim and Inception later, I was even more convinced that I was going to be severely underwhelmed. And I wasn't. Maybe modern movies will have a major impact on the future of movies.
So yes, this concludes the first in my two Jeff Bridges sagas I will be reviewing. Speaking of which, if there is one thing a gallery of Big Lebowski fans will be snickering about after seeing this is this: The Dude is God! After Tron: Legacy, I can abide that.
This is yet another review from Your Modest Guru and really that's pretty much all I do these days. Thanks for reading.
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