Tron Legacy

So the Tron sequel finally came out on DVD and Blu-ray here in Ireland couple of weeks ago and having missed it at the theater, due to mixed reviews, I sought it out and well, it was kind of worth it.

Tron Legacy continues the story of Kevin Flynn, played again by Jeff Bridges. The movie starts in 1989 where poor Flynn looks like a living action figure, talking to his son and goes off to work and is not heard again in 20 years. Then in our present, the son now all grown up and Garrett Hedlund-shaped gets a page from his dad's old arcade. He goes to investigate and ends up in the same world that his dad was in the 80's. Although now it's all changed and is ruled by another Flynn action figure, CLU! Son Flynn must find his dad and get out before it's too late. Or something.

Tron Legacy isn't a good movie. It looks pretty. It sounds pretty. But don't let that fool you. The director, Joseph Kosinski, doesn't really know what to do with the movie and plays it rather safe. Once we get to The Grid, it's more or less Tron - The Greatest Hits with better graphics. There's the identity disc game, lightcycles and all. But what struck me as odd about this is that the otherworldly feeling of the original movie's Grid was gone. What they had done with this one is they changed the Grid into a sort of Flourescent Sin City version of our world. The lightcycles no longer do those 90 degree angle turns and everything just feels a bit off. But still very enjoyable.

Until we get to the scene where Father and Son meet again. Then the movie just stops and try as they might, it never really gets going again. There's a nice action scene in the bar afterwards, but otherwise the movie is just painfully dull and extremely obvious from then on. Garrett Hedlund just looks confused most of the movie, Jeff Bridges seems to be playing The Dude again. At least Olivia Wilde is trying to do something in a role that's woefully underwritten for a character that's supposed to be something very special in the Tron universe.

Speaking of Tron, I have to wonder if the people doing this movie actually realized why the original was called Tron. What happens to Tron in this movie definitely seems like an afterthought and is handled quite poorly, but then again, what about this movie isn't. The filmmakers had a chance here to update Tron to the modern times and audiences, but instead decided to play it safe and make a movie that plays to the Tron fanboys and doesn't have much life to it and lacks any kind of punch. Best way to enjoy Tron Legacy is just listening to the soundtrack and imagining your own Tron movie. It's bound to be better than this mess. My score for Tron Legacy: 4/10

PS: Why can I only buy the original Tron in a dualpack with Tron Legacy? That's just mean, Disney.