REVIEW: Well, by this point I’m sure everyone reading this has already had their fill of TRON: LEGACY reviews. I’ve been reading them pretty religiously myself, but the numerous mixed reviews had me walk into the film with a certain degree of trepidation. Yet, I think reading those early reviews actually added to my enjoyment of the film, as I didn’t walk in expecting the game changer a lot of my peers might have expected after the brilliant trailers and comic-con footage.
Like Wayne, the trappings of wealth don’t interest him whatsoever, with him feeling more of an obligation to do good. While Wayne fought crime as Batman, Flynn fights his own corporation’s greed by playing pranks, and leaking the source code for his company’s multi-billion dollar OS onto the net in order to make it free for whomever wants it.
But then, about twenty-five minutes in, Sam hits the Grid, and the film explodes into full 3D, sucking us into the TRON universe. At this point, what began as a BATMAN BEGINS ripoff became something else entirely. As weak as the screenplay is, visually TRON: LEGACY is a perfect film. You’ve NEVER seen 3D like you’ve seen here, and visually it may be even more impressive than the game-changing AVATAR. Every single frame of the film once it hits The Grid is gorgeous, and you could literally take any frame from the film and pass it off as a fine piece of modern art.
And the music- don’t even get me started! The idea to have Daft Punk score LEGACY is inspired, and rarely have I seen a film where the music so perfectly complements what you’re seeing on-screen. By the same token, if you were to strip away the Daft Punk score, I have a feeling TRON would have imploded, as the music is essential. Even in a film like INCEPTION, where the music plays an important role, I’d say it’s responsible for about 25% of the film’s success. Here, the DAFT PUNK score goes about 50/50 with Kosinski’s visuals. It’s almost like a techno-musical, especially once we hit the incredible “Derezzed” scene, where Sam, Quorra, and Flynn fight their way through a nightclub full of opponents, with Daft Punk themselves appear on-screen mixing the tracks. The effect is incredible, and without a doubt this whole sequence is one of the cinematic high points of 2010.
As for Jeff Bridges, he’s likely going to be a very controversial character. Forget his character from the first TRON, as the guy he’s playing here is NOT the same Kevin Flynn. Granted, it’s probably been about a decade since I last saw TRON, but I don’t remember him being so “Dude”-like. Essentially, he’s re-creating The Dude from BIG LEBOWSKI, and while I can understand that sticking in some folks’ crawl, I was surprisingly OK with it, even when he tells Sam at one point that he’s “going to knock on the sky to see what it sounds like”. Obviously Bridges is having fun playing a sort of Obi-Wan Lebowski, and I had fun watching him. Less successful is Bridges’ other part, as the villainous CLU. His performance is OK, but the FX process to make Bridges resemble the way he looked in 1982 isn’t quite there yet, and is the only special effect that doesn’t entirely work.
As for the other returning TRON player, Boxleitner, he’s got a pretty tiny role, and hardcore TRON fans may not like the way the titular TRON is dealt with here, in a way that seems almost like an afterthought. The other noteworthy performance comes from Michael Sheen, channelling David Bowie circa-Ziggy Stardust as club-owner Zeus. My only complaint about Sheen is that I wish he was in it more, as he adds a little levity to what’s a surprisingly dark ride for a PG Disney flick.
Suffice to say, TRON: LEGACY is a profoundly flawed film as far as character development, and story goes. But as a visual experience, it comes damn close to fully compensating for it’s shortcomings on the page. Let’s face it, the original TRON, while fun to a child of the eighties, is no classic. It’s not MEGAFORCE, but it’s not STAR WARS either. It’s a fun, if dated film, and TRON:LEGACY improves on it by a wide margin. The ending naturally paves the way for a sequel (as does a big name cameo early in the film who I suspect might be the next film’s antagonist), and if this pull in big bucks, I have faith that another instalment might actually really take this to the next level. Visually they’ve got TRON down cold. Now, all they need to do is buckle-down, churn out a great script, and then we’ll really have something.