Visually Stunning TRON a Boring Retread
Sam Flynn’s (Garrett Hedlund) father Kevin (Jeff Bridges), the visionary CEO of electronics giant ENCOM, disappeared over two decades ago right on the cusp of what he felt was a landmark achievement, a melding of the digital and physical worlds the would change everything. This evening, trusted friend and colleague Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner) received a page from his boss’ old office at the man’s rundown and long closed video game parlor. He relays this information to Sam, both of them quietly wondering what the heck is going on and whether or not Kevin is trying to let them know he’s still amongst the living.
A stranger in an even stranger land in TRON: Legacy
What happens next won’t be too much of a surprise to anyone with an even passing knowledge of 1982’s TRON. Sam ends up inside a digital world, forced to play games by an iron-fisted dictator knowing that losing means immediate destruction even if he’s a flesh and blood “User” and not your normal run of the mill “Program.” But whereas the original was a relatively straightforward journey of a stranger in a strange land becoming the type of hero he never thought he could be, the long in coming sequel TRON: Legacy is nothing more than a saga of a father and son reconnecting after decades apart, all the visual whiz-bang a neon colored illusion trying its best to hide a cliché and slightly sappy familial melodrama.
All of which would be perfectly fine if said whiz-bang served a greater purpose. But at a certain point no amount of blue, red, orange, yellow and white color motifs can hide a tired narrative that continually drifts of into sentimentality so ripe you can smell it three screening rooms away. The last hour of this 127-minute monster is unfocused and constantly careens wildly out of control. It’s like the team of script and storywriters hadn’t the first clue as to where it was they wanted to go, only knowing they were crafting a direct sequel to the original even though the most people tend to recollect about it are the ahead of their time visuals and plot points that were more prescient then that film’s director and co-writer Steven Lisberger ever could have known.
But the biggest problem here is that TRON: Legacy, for all its technical wizardry and showoff 3D visuals, is very, very boring. Its second hour is a turgid, dialogue-heavy slog through family regrets and woes that had me slapping my forehead in frustration. Just when things should be building to something spectacular and mind-blowing the film goes in the opposite direction, and while I laud the attempt to put character first and action second when the people in question are this nondescript and one-dimensional I’m not sure that’s such a great idea.
Not that Disney’s money isn’t up there on the screen for audiences to see and revel in. I will admit that, for a little while at least (especially as a TRON fan, I was five when I first saw it and it’s held a place in my heart ever since), I was more than willing to give this sequel the benefit of the doubt. Starting with Sam’s initial foray onto “The Grid,” going through his first epic disc battle and culminating with a stunning race on the multi-tier Light Cycle track, director Joseph Kosinski and company had me ready and willing to fall under their spell. Heck, I was with this one for quite some time after that, enjoying the young hero’s first meeting with the mysterious Quorra (Olivia Wilde) while outright loving his initial 20-plus years after the fact reunion with his trapped in a digital world of his own creation father Kevin.
Best of all is the introduction of a character called Zuse, a seemingly all powerful program played to flamboyant excess by the great Michael Sheen. He’s like David Bowie, Dr. Dr. Frank-N-Furter and Freddie Mercury all rolled into one, ghostly white package. He prances. He dances. He hoots and he hollers. He chortles his way this way and that owning the screen with a giddy flamboyance that’s both stunning and lively, setting the stage for the movie’s most explosive action sequence allowing Sam, Quorra and all the rest to strut their stuff mano y mano in a way that’s as thrilling as it is captivating.
From that point on, however, the film has to go back to fleshing out more of its sluggish narrative and suddenly everything flat lines to a stunning degree. Little makes sense, what’s more I’m not entirely sure if the filmmakers themselves cared if did anyhow, everyone talk, talk, talk, talking themselves to pieces to the point tedium isn’t so much an option as it is a migraine-fueled requirement. The importance of TRON, a key figure in the first film, is downplayed to a ridiculous degree, while the culmination of Sam and Quorra’s odd little romance plays itself out in a way that is both laughable and head-scratching.
The real problem, though, is the one going on between father, son and dad’s evil cybernetic doppelganger CLU (also Bridges, creepily de-aged looking all plastic and with jarringly dead eyes). The resolution to their story isn’t just maudlin, it’s syrupy, the only thing missing the buttery rich pancakes which might make this caloric mess at least a somewhat tasty, if far too sugary, meal. This is a movie that goes out, not with a bang, but instead a whimper the size of Texas, all of which might make T. S. Eliot proud but for the rest of is nothing short of a massive disappointment.
I will admit that the film does look pretty darn great, and while they won’t be as game-changing as the ones in the original the visuals here are nearly worth the price of a matinee admission almost on their own. On top of that, Daft Punk’s exhilarating and kinetic score gives things an urgency and a momentum they never would have had otherwise, the electronic wunderkinds manufacturing a sonic tour de force I could listen to for hours on end without tiring of.
It just isn’t enough, not anymore at least. When I was five I could give TRON the benefit of the doubt, thin story and superficial characterization be damned. The sad truth is the 28 years later I can’t do the same, TRON: Legacy trying to pull water from the same well and doing it with less pizzazz than its now low-tech predecessor. It is a movie that proves that lightening rarely, if ever, strikes twice, and that sometimes fond memories of a cherished favorite have no business being revisited nearly three decades after the fact.
- Review reprinted courtesy of the SGN in Seattle
Film Rating: êê (out of 4)
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