Tron: Legacy Review

Tron: Legacy almost operates as a litmus test for how much we will tolerate in our tent-pole filmmaking. Just how much bad dialogue, poor acting, inexplicable plotting, and emotionally-vapid characterizations will we accept as long as we've been convinced that the film is “cool”? How little actual content will we demand in exchange for $300 million light shows disguised as motion pictures? We casually accept seemingly intentional mediocrity in our franchise films, from The Flintstones to Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, holding our nose but making these films into smash hits. I am reminded of Patrick Stewart's monologue towards the end of Star Trek: First Contact. “The line must be drawn here. This far, and no further.” If we as moviegoers accept this artless, soulless confection as a suitable example of big-budget filmmaking, then we deserve everything we get in the following years. The apparent absence of any attempt at quality renders even the (only occasionally) pretty pictures impotent and dull. And make no mistake; Tron: Legacy is a stunningly dull would-be movie…read more [The Huffington Post]

TRON: Legacy wisely catches up anyone who missed the original, with a prologue showing Flynn (with an impressive CGI age rollback for Bridges) leaving his young son Sam and never returning. A decade later, Sam (Garrett Hedlund) is majority stockholder in Encom, the corporation spawned when Flynn wasn't around to keep bean counters from taking over. Sam doesn't want anything to do with the business. He prefers making an annual hacking raid into the security system, vaguely amusing his father's partner Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner) who also doesn't like the new regime. Alan tells Sam he received a beeper message from Flynn at his video game arcade. Sam investigates and winds up tapping into Dad's laser molecular transfer system, sending him into the Grid…read more [tampabay.com]

Tron: Legacy Posters The story behind Tron: Legacy is as simple as it can get and plays out exactly like I thought it would. Bits and pieces of other fan favorite genre films are thrown in for good measure, the messianic plot of The Matrix and Star Wars mostly. It's the world that director Joseph Kosinski that bugged me the most. Why is there rain in The Grid? Why do some of the programs have wacky personalities like Michael Sheen's Zuse while others are cold and robotic? There is even a hobo program sitting in an alley drinking digital alcohol. I guess that if everything in this world would be like a computer there wouldn't be much of a story and it would all be rather bland over all but these things are never explained, like the rocky and rough terrain surrounding The Grid, where Kevin Flynn lives. Why would such a area exist inside a computer? And it's also a good thing Sam Flynn grew up liking extreme sports and motorcycles, instead of a soft bodied computer nerd that he would probably grow up as in the real world. I'm sure “Star Wars Kid” vs Tron wasn't exciting enough, though it would be quite funny…read more [Twichfilm]

Jeff Bridges as Kevin Flynn / Clu 2.0, Tron: Legacy “Tron: Legacy” is as much legacy as Tron. You can feel the deep imprint left by the 1982 cult classic with every flip of a light disc, every zoom of a Lightcycle, every wrinkle-resistant smile on Jeff Bridges' computer-sanitized face. With a homage around every corner, heavy hangs the crown. As it was in the beginning, “Tron: Legacy” takes us into a glow-stick world inside computers where the games are lethal and the mind can get lost, albeit with new players, a new story line, a new director and nearly three decades of improved technology including all the whiz-bang-wow the latest 3-D has to offer. Unfortunately, there's not nearly enough new life…read more [LA Times] To describe any film as “a roller coaster” is a complete cliche, but TRON: Legacy is almost begging for it. Director Joseph Kosinski, whether he knows it or not, has constructed the film as such: There's the quick build at the beginning, a whole bunch of action at the front, a lull in the middle and an exciting twisty, turny finish. But, like a roller coaster, the slow parts are forgivable because the ride is so much fun and that's what TRON: Legacy is, one of the most fun films of the year. Its biggest flaw though, back to that pesky roller coaster analogy, is that nothing changes by the end. The audience will be exhilarated, entertained, but once you get out of your seat, everything is the same. None of the characters in the film have any real arc. Even when you think they are about to exhibit an arc, it doesn't progress through to fruition…read more [Slashfilm]

Olivia Wilde and Garrett Hedlund in Tron: Legacy The plot isn't anything special. It doesn't make you think. There isn't much time to, anyway — a fight scene follows a chase scene, which in turn is followed a CGI panorama over the city, then there's some awful dialogue and the whole cycle begins again. Things stay together generally, but there are a few utterly inexplicable (and inexcusable) plot lurches, particularly at one point close to the end, where one minor character suddenly saves the day by swapping sides. The best bits are those taken from the original movie, but upscaled for the sequel. The light cycle arena section, in particular, is incredible, and could have easily been twice as long without complaint…read more [Wired.co.uk] Just a few seconds in, you can feel it. This isn't going to one of those movies that gives 3D a bad name. The camera swoops down out of the night sky, rushes through city streets and glides up to the front door of Kevin Flynn's house, where we see the hacker-turned-cyberman (Jeff Bridges) telling bedtime stories to his seven-year-old son Sam. It's the night Flynn will suddenly disappear forever. For the first time since Avatar, Tron Legacy uses the technology to make us experience something new and special again. For now, debut director Joe Kosinksi wisely soft-pedals the stereoscopic dazzle. He barely needs it. Even in the real world, Tron Legacy is just gorgeous to gawp at…read more [Total Film]

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Tron: Legacy Info Tron: Legacy Video Review

Tron: Legacy Photos

Tron: Legacy is part rescue mission, part reunion story, less about the return of the computerized world of the Grid than it is about the sci-fi infused relationship of father and son, two Flynns separated by a digital divide. We learn early on, while still in the real world, that twentysomething Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) is a trust funded troublemaker. He delights in screwing with his absent father's software company Encom, in which he is also a major shareholder. Sam's other interests include base jumping, driving his Ducati at illegally high speeds and exhibiting surliness in the face of authority. Lured to the shuttered Flynn's Arcade, hoping to learn why his father vanished a decade earlier, Sam soon stumbles his way into the Grid, the digitized world discovered by Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) three decades earlier. As Sam is thrust into the virtual world, Tron: Legacy jumps from 2D to dazzling, neon-lit 3D with a Wizard of Oz-like transition…read more [Kotaku]

Tron: Legacy Poster The mildly surprising news, then, is that there are aspects of Tron: Legacy that are actually rather cool. Granted, these mostly fall within the realms of architecture, interior design and advanced motor racing techniques, but they are blessed compensations nevertheless. The fact that you get two (or three, depending upon how you count) incarnations of Jeff Bridges isn't a bad deal either, although it all ends up being a half-hour too much of a just okay thing. Like the original, the follow-up should do decent business, especially in 3D engagements, where the dynamic staging of the action scenes will be be seen to greatest effect, but fall short of the box office Nirvana achieved by top-drawer sci-fi and fantasy films…read more [THR] The film could use more comic energy like that, and less computer/fantasy geekiness. Screenwriters Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, like a couple of obsessed fanboys, get so caught up in explaining the movie's imaginary world that they forget to write half-decent dialogue. Old pro Bridges comes off fine, simply by projecting his own chilled-out aura. (He's basically playing The Dude as a father figure.) The younger cast members, however, barely make an impression. This computer world may be a three-dimensional wonder, but their personalities are as flat as a monitor. True, there wasn't a lot to the characterizations in the 1982 TRON. But we didn't mind because the film's visual creativity – one of the first forays into computer animation – was so much fun. Today, the work of director Steven Lisberger and his animators looks as elementary and quaint as a game of Asteroids, but it also has a gee-whiz charm…read more [cbs.ca]

James Frain as Jarvis and Garrett Hedlund as Sam Flynn in Tron Legacy

Tron: Legacy Info

Running time: 126 minutes Rated: PG. Cast: Jeff Bridges, Garrett Hedlund, Olivia Wilde, James Frain, Beau Garrett, Michael Sheen, Anis Cheurfa Director: Joseph Kosinski Genre: Teenage, Cult Official Movie Web Site: http://disney.go.com/tron/ Opens: Friday, Dec. 17, 2010.