Ragnarfan's Blog

Source:totalscifi
By:Matt McAllister

Film review
Directed by Joseph Kosinski
Starring Jeff Bridges, Garrett Hedlund, Bruce Boxleitner, Olivia Wilde, Michael Sheen, James Frain
Release date 17 December 2010

Twenty years after Kevin Flynn (Bridges) disappeared, a message comes through from his pager. When his 27-year-old son Sam (Hedlund) investigates, he finds himself sucked into the Grid – a digital world ruled over by the power-crazed Clu. Forced to compete in a series of games involving Light Cycles and strange weapons, only Quorra (Wilde) can help to reunite him with his father…

The House of Mouse isn’t exactly known for taking risks with its live-action output – indeed, a cursory glance at 2010’s other offerings include such depressingly straightforward fare as Alice in Wonderland, Prince of Persia and The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Yet they haven’t played it safe with TRON Legacy. A 28-years-later sequel to a box office flop that younger viewers will be totally unfamiliar with? Coupled with a small, but fervent TRON fanbase ready to cry foul at any attempt to insult their memories of the original? Sounds like a recipe for box-office poison…

Yet the buzz generated by a series of dazzling trailers suggests Joseph Kosinski’s film will find an audience. It deserves to. Disney have created a treat for the eyes and ears that cries out to be seen on the biggest screen possible. Aided by what might just be the most effective use of 3-D technology yet, the film presents an astonishingly convincing world that takes the unique, colour-coded design of the original, gives it a sleek make-over, mixes in elements of Metropolis, Blade Runner, The Fifth Element and The Matrix, and comes up with something new and exciting.

While fans of the original will get a kick out of some of the nods here, a familiarity with the first film is not essential. New hero Sam has little knowledge about events of the first movie. And the story itself is nonsense anyway; a mix of childish simplicity and the wildly convoluted that doesn’t add up to much at all.

In fact, it’s fair to say that everything except the visuals and music is dead space. The dialogue consists of empty declarations or clichés ripped from other movies (“Now go!”; “Save her!”; “This ends now!”; “Game over!”), with a few added chunks of portentous exposition that act as necessary time-out breaks to stop the action from becoming numbing.

Nor are there really many characters in the conventional sense. Garrett Hedlund has a certain presence, but Sam is given few character traits. Jeff Bridges’ Kevin and Clu are both humourless and superficial. Olivia Wilde’s Quorra looks cool but her personality is blank (though, to be fair, she is made up of computer chips). The only flourish of character comes in the form of Michael Sheen’s outrageously entertaining, OTT glam-pup Castor, a sort of cane-spinning spin on David Bowie. It’s not a subtle performance, but Sheen nabs the film’s best scene.

Instead, this is storytelling of the visual kind. And what visuals they are! From towering infinity arches descending against a lightning-cracked backdrop and prolonged battles with “identity discs” (frisbees to you or I), to the updated Light Cycle sequence (here swooping through bending racetracks like Speed Racer’s evil older brother), TRON Legacy delivers one awe-inspiring, photo-real action sequence after another. Even the Tronned-up Disney logo looks terrific! The dark blue backdrops of the original are reworked into a night-world punctured by whites and blues that looks impossibly stylish. Forget Pandora; the Grid is the coolest place in any universe.

The only not-quite-perfect piece of CGI is the motion-captured Jeff Bridges (like some creepy, digi-fountain of youth, it allows the actor to appear as if he’s in his early 30s again). The technology has come a long way since The Polar Express, but it still leaves human features with a slightly unreal, dead quality. That’s fine for the in-game version of the character – he’s not human anyway – but it jars slightly in the 1989-set, real-world prologue.

The surefire-hit soundtrack is just as important to the unique feel of TRON Legacy as the visuals. Daft Punk (who acknowledge the influence the original film had on them) meld their traditional electro sounds to a full orchestra, and wind up sounding like Hans Zimmer meets Vangelis. Every shot benefits from their pulsating rhythms; if the film feels like one long video for the French duo at times, that’s no bad thing.

Director Joseph Kosinski will next turn his hand to reworking The Black Hole (explaining the glimpse of a poster early on in the movie). Like both TRON films, that was another fun (if less cool) Disney film with gorgeous visuals, a terrific soundtrack and a thin script full of portentous, existential murmurings. If the remake is anything like TRON Legacy, we’re in for a treat.

VERDICT: 8/10

A film with all the flaws and strengths of the original: the story and characters are paper-thin, but the awe-inspiring visuals and soundtrack are so good it doesn’t matter.