Tron: Legacy

Two-And-A-Half Stars

Oh look, another Jeff Bridges movie. After having just played the lead in True Grit, The Dude takes on two roles in this overly-complex and unremarkable sci-fi film that can lead some people scratching their heads trying to figure out the plot. For all the build-up and hype for this movie, I am sad to say it was not as good as it could have been.

In Tron: Legacy, Jeff Bridges plays Kevin Flynn, the creator of the video game Tron, who disappears into his own creation after developing unheard-of technological advances. Twenty years later his son, Sam Flynn (played by Garrett Hedlund) enters the universe of the game (referred to as "The Grid") after receiving a message from his father. Upon entering The Grid, Sam realizes something is wrong when he runs into a likeness of his father, CLU (for Codified Likeness Utility), who has become the ruthless, authoritarian leader of The Grid.

Sam has to compete in a series of matches that mimic the video game his father created before he is rescued by Quorra (Olivia Wilde) and brought to his father, who explains the rather exhaustive history of The Grid and CLU. It is discovered that CLU wishes to leave The Grid and enter the real world, along with an army that he has created from programmed players within the game. CLU also was responsible for the genocide of a race of sentient programs that were naturally created by The Grid.

The movie starts out poorly (hitting on all the father's-gone-so-son-has-to-take-over-the-giant-company-dad-left-behind cliches along with terrible one-liners during the opening action sequences) but manages to improve over time. By the time the third act rolls around and the conflict begins heading towards resolution, the movie picks up quite well, but not enough to rescue the rest of the movie.

It felt as if almost half the dialogue in the film was exposition, explaining different parts of various back-stories, all spread over several different scenes. I have not seen the original Tron so I am not sure how much the writers were trying to explain everything from the first movie and help the audience understand the nature of the computer program the characters are stuck in.

Also, releasing the film in 3-D was unnecessary. I saw it in 3-D but in this case 3-D did little to improve the movie. For those who think that 3-D makes everything better, how much better does 3-D really make anything? The Matrix (thematically similar to Tron: Legacy) is quite good in plain old 2-D. The action sequences in Tron: Legacy, which are quite entertaining, would still be impressive and fun without the need to view them with special, large (and probably previously-used) glasses.

As rich and as deep as the universe of The Grid is, the movie still falls short of its potential. It touches on intriguing notions such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality and the nature of reality itself but does not go far enough in developing them. Instead, just as the movie is getting good, it turns into a typical action flick. The good guys have to get to the exit portal and escape before the bad guys do in order to save the world.

Ultimately, Tron: Legacy is a poor man's The Matrix. The plot can be confusing at times (my father was not sure what was going on all the time) and it tries too much to fit the contours of an action movie. I would have liked to see Quorra and Sam become love interests but who knows what might happen if a sequel is made.

Until next time, Orange Hat Guy