TRON: LEGACY (2010)

TRON: LEGACY (2010)

Tagline:  The Game Has Changed.

(Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi) [PG]

The Grid. A digital frontier. I tried to picture clusters of information as they moved through the computer. What did they look like? Ships? motorcycles? Were the circuits like freeways? I kept dreaming of a world I thought I'd never see. And then, one day...

This is actually one of the great underrated movies of the past 20 years. I am writing this review 11 years after its release and the effects are still mind-blowing. It revolves around Sam Flynn (played by Garrett Hedlund) who is the son of a digital tycoon Kevin Flynn(played by Jeff Bridges). His father has been missing for quite some time after creating a digital world. One of Kevin’s trusted business partners gets a page from an old shut down arcade. Sam goes to investigate why, since the phone number it came from has been deactivated for years. What he finds there is a portal to the digital world his father created. The world is now run by CLU, one of Kevin’s old programs that is determined to keep Sam trapped forever. 

This movie is visually amazing, but does have some slower more cerebral moments which might have turned some fans off? I am really not sure what moviegoers were looking for. The set designs, CGI work, cinematography, etc, are just top-notch. Making Jeff Bridges likeness look younger and dating him back to the ’80s was a painstaking 2 years process involving old footage of Bridges, motion capture, and more. 

CLU’s legions are sadistically sinister and the aesthetic in the film feels very “walled in” like a circuit board might be and there is just tons of thought behind it all. One thing I do know that went over well with fans was Quorra being played by Olivia Wilde. Olivia might be best known for COWBOYS & ALIENS another bizarrely maligned movie. 

My only complaint about this movie is that they assume that getting into a digital world could actually change religion. I am not sure what is meant by that. Breaking into one world or the other doesn’t seem like it would have the power to do that at least in the sense that truth doesn’t change. SO perhaps those points in the dialog are directed at false religions? I also think one missing piece here is the middle section. There are probably 50 minutes in this movie with just, not a ton going on and I don’t know that adding the dialog to the already well done set up added anything. This second issue isn’t as much of a complaint as it is an observation, one that might have put this thing over the top for those that didn’t appreciate it. We also don’t get a great explanation as to how the food was somehow in the digital world, but whatever. It’s sci-fi man, sometimes you just have to go with this stuff. 

Plot-wise this movie is shot very much like THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. The big bulk of the most interesting action is front-loaded, while the duel between the major players is put at the end. This causes the movie to feel backward from a writing perspective.  One thing that helps this entire movie is the brilliant soundtrack and score mostly provided by DAFT PUNK. 

Overall this is a cerebral futuristic ride containing all kinds of metaphors that can be related to the real world. It’s brilliantly laid out and well told in spite of some of the slower parts. I have to give TRON: LEGACY a solid 5 out of 7. I personally would have probably liked this thing with less heady messaging and more fun.

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF WALT DISNEY PICTURES AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY. 

Please check out the link below by clicking on the picture. Because no one should die buttonless.