MOVIE OF THE WEEK #2: TRON: LEGACY


"I have to admit ... These computer-generated outfits are quite slimming!" Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) satisfies his need for speed in a scene from TRON: LEGACY.
Credit: Douglas Curran © Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.


KEY CAST MEMBERS: Garrett Hedlund, Jeff Bridges, Olivia Wilde, Michael Sheen, Bruce Boxleitner, James Frain, Beau Garrett and the music of Daft Punk

WRITER: Edward Kitsis, Adam Horowitz and Brian Klugman (screenplay); Steven Lisberger and Bonnie Macbird (characters)

DIRECTOR: Joseph Kosinski

WEB SITE: disney.go.com/tron/

THE PLOT: Picking up about 7 years after the 80s cult classic left off, TRON: Legacy starts in 1989 by introducing us to Sean Flynn (played as a child by Owen Best). Sean is the son of Kevin Flynn, a top executive at the highly successful ENCOM software company. Regaling Sam with tales of how he entered a digital world where he and figures named Clu (Jeff Bridges; I'll explain later) and TRON (Bruce Boxleitner) helped, in a completely digital world, create "The Grid," a.k.a. the perfect system. (If that sentence doesn't make sense upon reading it, stop here and go see the original movie.)

But one night, Kevin leaves to go to work ... And never returns home.

Fast forward to the present and Sam is now a 27 year-old rebellious young man who is a computer genius in his own right, much to the chagrin of the current board of ENCOM. A loner who gave up on ever seeing his dad long ago, Sam is shocked when current ENCOM board member Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner in non digital world form) tells him he received a page - yes, a page - from his father at the office at his old arcade.

Confused yet? Stay with me!

Sam, shocked and disbelieving at first, eventually decides to visit his dad's old arcade only to discover a gateway to The Grid. That's where he learns that his father has been trapped for 20 years and that Clu - now an evil program living as a dictator in The Grid - has been lying in rest waiting to escape to Sam's world. There's just two people stopping him from doing so: Quorra (Olivia Wilde), a rebel who is more important than Sam first imagines ... And his dad, Kevin.

Now reunited with his father, Sam embarks on a life-and-death journey that will change life as he knows it forever ...

THE TAKE: I really don't even know where to start in regards to where TRON: Legacy fails. I mean, there's the underwhelming acting - the saddest case of which belongs to Bridges as for some reason - blame it on the beard he has as the senior Flynn, maybe - becomes "The Dude" from his beloved cult hit The Big Lebowski about half way through the film. (It's not a good fit for the character or the movie.) Of course, that's no where near as over the top as that of Michael Sheen in his role as Castor/Zuse, which made me have flashbacks of Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange right before he gets his !@# kicked. (Then again, a friend of mine said that he seemed to be channeling a super-glam 80s version of David Bowie and that description is so much better I was mad at myself I didn't think of that first.)

There's also the elementary-level dialogue; there are no captivating soliloquies, monologues or speeches here. The only attempt at one is given by a certain character at the moment you would expect it and it's pretty much standard villain speech right down to the inflections and triumphant arm raise.

Wanna get into the visuals and action sequences? OK, let's do that since you've already seen them all before and done much better in The Matrix trilogy, Star Wars and, as odd as it might seem, the ill-fated Speed Racer movie that came out a few years ago. From the lightsaber-like tools that become the light cycles to the ending Star Wars, TIE fighter-like flight sequence, TRON feels like a recycled movie way more often than it should. From the lighting schemes and sets that are similar to the aforementioned movies to the Euro-discothèque vibe of the attire, TRON: Legacy never feels organic unto itself.

If you're wondering why I haven't mentioned the 3D aspect of the film yet, there's a reason: I couldn't find any! Now, the film does warn you of this at the beginning by saying many of the scenes were shot in 2D and intended to be viewed that way, the lack of 3D moments in the film comes off as a blatant attempt by the studio to capitalize on the current 3D craze and in turn squeeze a few extra dollars out of your pocket. (Is anyone else convinced yet that Hollywood is working hand-in-hand with many electronics manufacturers to help sell 3D Blu Ray discs and HDTV sets? Anyway ...)

Last but certainly not least, TRON: Legacy is, in a word, boring. Not "I'm going to take a nap" boring, but "Only 40 minutes have passed? It feels like I've been here an hour already" boring. Despite director Joseph Kosinski's (presumably) best efforts to craft this into a compelling father-son story, TRON: Legacy feels more like a made for TV movie ... With a LOT of special effects that fail to impress. (Hey, at least I didn't mention some of the plot points that are never really explain well ... Like how in the world Clu sent out a page to a world he doesn't really understand whatsoever ...)

Here's the biggest kicker - If you've seen the first film, you know that Tron, the character, is a major player in the movie. In this film, he is reduced to a (largely) voiceless, Darth Maul-like character whose contribution is so minor the movie should have been called TRON: The Rise of Clu so that audiences would have been prepared for his minimal screen time. In attempting to make a father-son story for the (digital) ages, the final product became more of a misfire than Windows Vista.

PARTING SHOT: Sadly, the only legacy this TRON adventure is likely to create is the large scores of audiences leaving theaters thoroughly disappointed in what they have just witnessed.

RATING (OUT OF FOUR POSSIBLE BUCKETS OF POPCORN):

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