Cinema Snark: Tron Legacy

I'm going to say it right off the bat: Tron was my favorite movie when I was a young lad. God only knows why, really--it had a slow pace and a whole religious subplot going on, and was surprisingly short on action. Everyone always remembers the light-cycles and the disc-fights, of course, but they make up a depressingly small portion of the movie. There's a lot of talking and running and hiding and dystopian computer-generated landscapes, making Tron something of a spiritual precursor to the Beast Machines TV series. (That's probably going to be really funny mildly amusing to the three other people in the world who ever watched that show.)

In any case, I loved the damn movie anyway, even though liking it apparently put me in a category with various fat, sweaty mouthbreathers who subsisted on diets of Mountain Dew and Doritos. Because that's what all nerds are like, right? Right.

Flash forward fifteen years.

I was intrigued by whispers of a sequel, which culminated in the release of a teaser trailer at Comic-Con 2008. (That link is actually the more polished version shown at Comic-Con 2009, but you get the idea.) Better visuals, check. Better color palette (neon on black works so much better than neon on white), check. Cool action sequences, check. And hey, look, it's Jeff Bridges!

So much awesome. Needless to say, I have been giddy ever since, with subsequent trailers only increasing my fanboyish glee. And, upon its release, did it live up to my expectations?

Short answer: Yes. I loved it.

Long answer: While it is by no means a perfect movie, Tron Legacy improves upon the original in a number of ways. As previously stated, the color scheme and visual aspect have been vastly improved, and the movie makes good use of the 3D/IMAX technology without resorting to those cheapass "this will look great in 3D but will look absolutely retarded on a normal screen" moments. It also helps that the movie was actually filmed in 3D instead of just shoehorning the 3D elements in in post-production to make an extra buck. (I'm looking at you, Clash of the Titans. And no, you can't come out of the box of shame yet. Stop asking.)

The thing about this movie is, I can't help but view it through the lens of the original. So when people say that Tron Legacy is boring and has pacing issues, I can't help but laugh--because in comparison to the original, Legacy is a non-stop adrenaline-fueled thrill ride. The thing is, Tron and Tron Legacy tell two completely different stories with radically different intentions. Legacy uses several characters and gimmicks from the original, of course, but it's a completely different animal. Here's what I mean:

Tron begins as a story of corporate corruption and greed, and a man trying to regain his intellectual property. When Kevin Flynn is sent to the game world, it becomes a high-tech fantasy with gladiators and messianic themes. Imagine a futuristic team-up between Spartacus (Tron) and Jesus (Flynn), where they have to fight Robespierre Mark II (the Master Control Program) and end his Reign of Terror. [Actually, you know how I said "God only knows why" I liked Tron? Scratch that. Any movie awesome enough to draw that last analogy is pretty much the best movie ever.]

Tron Legacy, on the other hand, is a much more straightforward story of a young man (Sam Flynn) looking for his missing father (Kevin Flynn, played once again by JEFF BRIDGES). I mean, sure, there's a brutal dictator with genocidal tendencies (CLU II) which his father created in his own image, but Sam's top priority the entire time is to get his dad home. They only really move into confrontation with CLU when he becomes a direct obstacle to their return to the real world.

In other words, Legacy has a simpler overall structure and less to discuss in terms of philosophy and other such high-minded concepts--but those things are less necessary if you're just looking to create a cool action-adventure that's fun for the whole family. And, as it turns out, that's exactly what Disney is looking to do these days. They took a big gamble by handing this project to an untested director like Joseph Kosinski, but I'd say it paid off: the movie looks great, although there are occasional points where things start to look like a futuristic Mac commercial (understandable, considering Kosinski's previous directorial experience was in advertising). Everything is sleek and shiny, and the updated costumes and frisbees of doom memory discs look great. Most of the vehicles from the first film reappear in Legacy as well, with a couple new models (there's a really awesome aerial combat section in the shiny new light-planes).

One cool thing from the original that didn't feature in the sequel was the idea that programs would look like their creators, so--in proper Wizard of Oz fashion--every major character in the real world also appeared as a program in the digital world. It added a bit of cohesion to the two different stories, and was a way of instantly making you sympathize with (or dislike) the programs. It doesn't happen in Legacy, because The Grid that Flynn created appears to be kept separate from the internet and the rest of the digital world (God, imagine what a clusterfuck that would be), so the new faces at ENCOM have no reason to appear as programs. I was hopeful that Cillian Murphy's cameo as Dillinger (the son of the rat bastard who stole Flynn's ideas in the first movie) would extend to an appearance as a digital antagonist, but no such luck.

On the other hand, however, the supporting characters in Legacy certainly have more personality than the ones in Tron--the most notable examples being Olivia Wilde's alternately badass and z0mg-adorable Quorra and Michael Sheen's glam-rock, drag-queen-fabulous Castor. (My reaction to the antics of the latter character was something along the lines of "what is this I don't even")

In terms of action, the violence is fast-paced and surprisingly brutal. Because we're dealing with programs here instead of actual people, Disney can get away with showing characters get cut in half or shot through the head--it's okay because there's no blood; they just crumble into pixels. Also, the integration of capoeira into the hand-to-hand fight choreography was an inspired choice, because the break-dance-like moves work reeeeally well with the soundtrack by Daft Punk.

Also, the sound track is by motherfucking DAFT PUNK. Do you really still need more convincing to go see this movie? (They even make a cameo. It's great.)

And now we come to The Dude. After all, I couldn't very well review this movie without talking in some detail about Jeff Bridges. Flynn is an odd character in this, oscillating back and forth between zen and zany, and occasionally achieving both at the same time. ("You're messing with my zen thing, man.") He has his moments of stern, Jedi-like badassery (the hooded robe helps), and then he turns into his character from The Big Lebowski at the drop of a hat. It's bizarre, but so fantastic that I can't bring myself to care. The CGI-bestowed youth that they use to turn him into CLU circa 1989 is a little jarring, because we really can't do perfect photo-realistic faces with computers yet. It's functional, but you can definitely tell that CGI-witchery is at work. That would be fine in and of itself, because CLU isn't human, but they use the same effect for flashbacks of Flynn himself, and he definitely is human. (Not to mention that none of the other programs look like that.)

Long story short: It's definitely not a movie to be taken seriously, but sometimes you don't want to take things seriously. On the scale of pure fun movies this year, I'd put it ahead of Red.

Lastly, any movie that inspires THIS is pretty fucking cool in my book. Go see it, if you haven't already.