All I can remember about the first Tron film is futuristic cars making sharp 90 degree turns and I admit that my main motive for seeing Tron Legacy is that I just fancied a pre-Christmas, mindless popcorn movie.
And at least this was made in 3D so it's not as uncomfortable as watching something retro-fitted - although I still don't see what it actually added. Tron Legacy is a visually stunning film all black and white with splashes of neon. Perhaps it's just the amateur photographer in me but I just love the reflections in all those shiny surfaces.
Anyway, like the last visually stunning, shot in 3D film I saw (Avatar) the plot is fairly slim and predictable. Digital world Tron's original creator, Kevin Flynn, disappears ones night leaving his son Sam an orphan. When the grown up Sam (Garrett Hedlund) goes to investigate the origins of a pager message from his father's now abandoned former office he inadvertently ends up inside the digital world his father created.
Once inside he discovers that, surprise, surprise the programme has gone bad (wonder if anyone thought of switching it off and switching it back on again?) and the digital world is now run by his father or rather a clone of his father's younger self, Clu, with aspirations to break out into the real world.
The real Kevin is living in forced exile and so the race to rescue him and escape the game before Clu begins.
This isn't a film about complex plot and character development. Neither is it about great acting, despite getting Jeff Bridges twice: A CGi'd younger version for Clu and then the man in all his lived-in glory as Kevin. Aside from being a great looking film with possibly one of the coolest looking motorbikes, it has a cracking soundtrack from trendy young people's band Arcade Fire. But ultimately it is just a mildly good-fun, popcorn movie.
It gets more points than Avatar though for a) being proper popcorn movie length, b) not trying to be something else and c) having segments set outside the game not in 3D so you can take the blinking glasses off.
The Rev Stan rating is three out of five. Rotten Tomatoes gives it 48% aggregated from more than 200 reviews. Metacritic gives it 49% based on 40 critics reviews.
PS Does anyone else think the booming base chords used to add drama are pinched straight from Inception?
Comments