Movie #80 TRON Legacy (2010)

The Dude in your computer.

Unfortunately that my about the only thing that I ended up enjoying from the new TRON movie.  Jeff Bridges revised his role from the original film as Kevin Flynn.  This time there are two of him.  The young program of him he created oh so many years ago called CLU, and the old man Flynn.  Old man Flynn is happy to see his son (Sam Flynn played stiff as a board by Garrett Hedlund) join him in the computer, but refused to do anything in order to get out. "Sam is being very un-Dude.  Bridges is playing a zen master, Buddhist, slacker in cyber space.  Several time during the movie I shouted out Lebowski quotes that seemed to "fit right in there".  I was begging to hear Bridges end every sentence with "man".  I had to keep reminding me there were little kids in the theater so I wouldn't yell out the profanities. 

I am not here to bash this movie, but it is boring.  Where Inception was a bunch of people talking about what they are going to do then doing it, TRON was a bunch of people talking about what they should do then doing nothing.  Both are boring.

Here are my Positive Points:

• The soundtrack by Daft Punk was awesome.  Possibly the best thing in the film.
• Michael Sheen as the proprietor of the bar was insanely good.  Even if the bar scene was totally stolen from the Mos Eisley Cantina in Star Wars.  Michael Sheen seemed to be doing a cabaret Ziggy Stardust.
• The effects were ok and looked good in IMAX 3-D.
• The sirens were hot.  But being Disney, not too hot.

Here are my Negative Points:

• Garrett Hedlund has less charisma than a common house plant.  He makes Hayden Christian look like Marlon Brando.  And he walks funny.
• The script.  Too much talking without saying anything.
• The pacing was way too slow.  Could have been a 90 minute film, not a 2 hour plus one.
• The action scenes were better than the first, but still needed some "umph" inserted.  They could have been much bigger.
• The story really didn't make any sense.  Maybe it did in 1982 when the first TRON came out, but I want a 21 century film in a computer.  Not jazzed up leftovers.  Which is what I felt the movie was.

I guess there are worse way to spend an afternoon and $20.  I give TRON Legacy a 2/5 stars.  Check out the Trailer Park to see for yourself.

Movie #64 TRON (The First One)

Very DOS.

That is the first though I had when I tried to explain the 1982 Disney movie TRON to him.  He is a tech geek and somehow he had never seen TRON.  I will attempt to explain TRON:  Kevin Flynn was a computer programmer and had a few programs stolen.  The man who stole them is now the head of they company they worked for and Flynn owns an arcade.  He still attempts to hack into the Master Control which is an early imaging of AI.  Allen and Laura are friends of Flynn's and they work at the company.  They come up with a plan to get Flynn into the building so he can find evidence of his wrong doing.  It all goes haywire when Flynn get sent into the actual computer and is forced to literally fight against computer programs.

This is the part of the movie everyone remembers.  It has a very blue and gray motif with lightened highlights.  There is a disc battle that is supposed to be memorable but I found it boring and silly.  There are also motorcycle chases and other action sequences that people of a certain age cherish.  The movie is supposed to show you what it looks like inside a computer.  It is very 90 degrees and boring and lifeless.  Even with humans or "users" as they are called inside the shinny box residing there.

I found this movie mind bottling.  It wasn't good.  The story is a mess.  Almost nothing in it makes much sense.  I though I was remembering it wrong so I re-watched it last week in preparation for TRON Legacy (blog to come).  My kids are excited about the new film and I thought I would give them some back story.  I ended up giving them not much of a story at all. 

I'm sure that the visuals were insane in 1982 but they look cheap now.  Keep in mind that Star Wars had been out for 6 years already and in my opinion it looks WAY better than this.  Jeff Bridges plays Flynn and he is charismatic and fun.  The rest of the cast is filled out with lesser known actors.

TRON never managed to charm me or win me over.  My kids disliked it as well.  My kids have really been showing up a lot in these blogs.  Must be the cold weather.  It felt like Disney spent all their time and money on making a special effects flagship.  Hummmm, I wonder if that will be foreshadowing of TRON Legacy?  If that is the plan that is fine, but you run the risk of exactly what happened to the film.  It looks terrible and ridiculous.  Great effects of sci-fi movies don't rely entirely on the visuals.  There needs to be a story to bond with.  That is why 2001: A Space Odyssey and Alien and Metropolis might look dated, but the are still resonate today.  I give TRON a 2/5 stars.  Check out the Trailer Park to see for yourself.