Movie Rewind - Tron Legacy
December 31st 2010 05:33
After over a decade of rumour, anticipation and spectacular sample footage, TRON: Legacy is finally here. The subject of every nerd’s neon fantasy is finally on the big screen. Disney have released the season’s 3D spectacular, but how does it fare?
Set, for the most part, 28 years after the original, TRON: Legacy begins in 1989 with Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) speaking to his son about his latest creations. Promising to take him to the arcade tomorrow, Flynn disappears without a trace leaving behind a booming business and an angry son. 21 years later and Encom, the business in question, is more profitable than ever. On the eve of its most important launch, a shadowy figure infiltrates the building and launches the software for free. The invader is Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund), son of Kevin and the biggest shareholder of Encom, fulfilling what he believes are his father’s wishes.
Taking its time, the film brings the audience up to speed with the story in the real world before delving into the star of the show, the new and improved Grid world. And what a world it is! TRON: Legacy has taken the original’s architecture and brought it up to modern standards. With far more computing power at their disposal than the meagre offerings available to the creators of the 1982 film, TRON: Legacy’s visual effects and production design teams have surpassed themselves to produce a setting as visually awe-inspiring as the original. All the elements of the first film are recreated in a sleek new way. Light Bikes and Recognizers get overhaul, and the gaming arenas befit the evolution of real world gaming, but all that the audience holds dear about the original is present and improved.
Perhaps the cleverest affectation of TRON: Legacy is that it does not waste the magnificence of 3D on the real world. The preliminary storytelling of TRON: Legacy happens in 2D. It is only when the audience is transported onto The Grid that the 3D technology is used. This is an effective trick, making the computer world exist in a sort of hyperrealism, engulfing us in Sam’s experience. TRON: Legacy is a film that knows its strengths and uses them to inspire.
Clu (which stands for Codified Likeness Utility), the program counterpart Kevin Flynn created to assist him in forging a new digital world, is perhaps the most obvious example in which new world technology shines through. A younger version of Jeff Bridges, this motion-capture avatar is the cutting edge of current technology, and fits in perfectly with the film’s mythology. True, many will insist that ‘the young Jeff Bridges’ is neither lifelike nor credible, but for me, the visual representation of Clu in perfect yet imperfect terms only highlights the script’s representation of him. The audience knows Jeff Bridges is no longer in his twenties – the fact that Clu’s skin sometimes shines in a scene just goes to remind us that this digital dictator strives for something he cannot attain – perfection. That does not mean that Digital Domain have been unable to achieve the same goal.
With truly breathtaking visuals, the Grid is a geek’s wet dream and 80’s neon nightmare rolled in to one. It is the Matrix powered by Commodore-64s that have escaped and evolved to create their own wilderness. Obviously today’s technology has allowed for a complete overhaul, but that which the film delivers still raises it above today’s blockbusters, let alone the original film. The visuals stay true to the TRON legacy but provide the rounded production design that should see several visual effects awards heading to the Digital Domain team next year. The Light Bikes sequence alone is worthy of credit, but the true zenith of the film has to be the Light Jets scene in which neon aircraft spiral and dive over a digital ocean.
TRON: Legacy is not perfect. Like any blockbuster of this type, it sometimes suffers from style over substance. The story keeps it simple, but is still engaging. There is no real character development and the interactions between reconciled father and son are emotionally muted, as is a scene where Sam grunts out news of his grandparents’ deaths, while his father simply shrugs in an ‘it figures, after two decades’ way while mouthing the most banal of regrets (close family!). Some of the ‘programs’ are a bit OTT (Castor, Castor and Castor some more) and Jeff Bridges’ zen-hippie bullshit dialogue also starts to grate a bit (culminating in a sub-Obi-Wan scene in which he manipulates an evil program).
But for all this lack of lustre when you delve deep beneath the facade, TRON: Legacy is a rare thing – a sequel that betters the original. Unlike a Microsoft release, TRON: Legacy improves on its predecessor in all areas. Tron, despite being a landmark in visual technology and filmmaking, was elsewhere imperfect and at times, fairly dull. With some truly terrible dialogue, no characterisation and a plot and pacing that made its 95 minute running time drag past, the 1982 ‘classic’ was elevated by its original concept and spectacular visual delivery alone. Without these, the film would have sunk into obscurity.
TRON: Legacy is a film that deserves to be seen in the way Disney intended – on the biggest screen possible whilst wearing ridiculous glasses. Without such awe-inspiring, big-screen submersion, you could easily knock two stars from the rating. It’s not that the other facets of the film are bad, but one should not mistake why TRON: Legacy was made. Often cinema reverts to spectacle unsuccessfully, but in this case TRON: Legacy gets it right.
(net sourced)
Kiwiauthor rating: I have to say that although I agree with some points raised previously, I was disappointed with the overall movie, firstly it was in 3D, with very little 3D aspects to it, the movie and plot was slow and overall very average. Cmon Hollywood, drop the 3D fad and the charging the punters extra for sub standard viewing and colour.
Tron-Legacy 5/10
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