Movies: Tron:Legacy

Grade: B-

Director: Joseph Kosinski (feature film directorial debut)

Writers: Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis (based on characters by Steven Lisberger and Bonnie MacBird)

Starring: Jeff Bridges as Kevin Flynn/Clu, Garrett Hedlund as Sam Flynn, Olivia Wilde as Quorra and Bruce Boxleitner as Alan Bradley/Rinzler/Tron

There are many films like Tron:Legacy. There’s the cliched plot lines of “son looking for lost father,” “pariah comes into mysterious world and is immediately an enemy” and the ever popular “pariah has love interest in said new world.” The latter is seen in many films, such as last year’s blockbuster Avatar, which was very similar to Tron:Legacy in several ways. There were flashy special effects, driving music and a reluctant hero. But what makes this different is that this will not be as awarded or critically-acclaimed. And, now here’s the kicker: it was better.

That’s right, folks. Tron:Legacy kept yours truly more entertained than James Cameron’s sprawling motion-capture epic and was better-written, better-shot and better-acted than Avatar, the film that was up for nine, count ‘em, NINE Academy Awards.

A precursor to the rest of my review which gives my opinion of Tron:Legacy: I have not seen the original 1982 film that this is a sequel to. Obviously it was decent enough to generate a sequel, albeit 28 years later.

Sam Flynn is a young boy when his father Kevin (Bridges), a revolutionary video game developer and CEO of ENCOM International disappears. Twenty or so years later, Sam (Hedlund) has passed up on the opportunity to take over the company and instead pulls annual pranks on the board of directors. This year, it’s stealing the company’s brand new operating system minutes before its launch and making it available free on the Internet. Classy, right? His father’s friend Alan (Boxleitner) comes to Sam’s house to tell him that he got a page from Kevin’s arcade, which has been closed since the older Flynn’s disappearance. Sam goes to check out said arcade and is transported onto The Grid, a world full of bright blue and red lights designed almost exactly like the unnamed city Sam lives in. After surviving the games in The Grid’s sports arena and Clu, who looks somewhat like his father, he is rescued by Quorra (Wilde), who turns out to be his real father’s (Bridges) apprentice. Kevin and Quorra are forced to live on the outskirts of the grid after Clu kicked Kevin out and took over The Grid. With the portal Sam took to get into the world closing quickly, the three must fight through the masses of people (known as programs) looking for both Flynns to reach the gate back to their old world.

There is much more to the plot than that. Out of all the premises I’ve tried to condense, this has got to be the hardest. I don’t like stealing premises from other sites; I’d like to think that I can set up a plot just fine.

Anyways, let’s begin with music. It is not often that I do such a thing, but the score of Tron:Legacy is clearly its highlight. Composed by French electronic duo Daft Punk and orchestrated by Joseph Trapanese (also arranged and orchestrated music for Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Theif and Traitor), the film’s score is one of the best this year. When asked why he picked Daft Punk, director Kosinski said, “How could you not at least go to these guys?” I say, “Who else?” With one reviewer comparing the score to Hans Zimmer’s haunting The Dark Knight soundtrack, Daft Punk’s video game-inspired, film-suited music sets the tone in pretty much every frame of the film and does it wonderfully. The upbeat drums during intense light cycle or battle scenes, haunting string sections during cross-country drives or pounding electronica while Sam drives his motorcycle across a sprawling metropolis; these are sounds that should be filling filmgoers’ ears during movies, not the standard dramatic violin crap that we hear today. Like Zimmer’s Inception score or Alexandre Desplat’s music for The Ghost Writer, the music should be extremely unique to the film itself to be successful, and for Daft Punk and Tron:Legacy it was.

Setting aside the music for a second, let me look at the story. As I mentioned in the open, the story is something we’ve all seen at least 20 times in movies, yet was still engaging. The characters were familiar, the struggle cliched. Hedlund’s somewhat ambivalent attitude swings were not engaging at times, but his character’s sense of humor early in the film kept him likable enough and entertaining. Bridges’ zen-like character contrasted from his drunk rambunctious performance in the Coen brothers’ True Grit but was good enough to not seem too cheesy. Wilde was not featured all that much to make a huge impact. The real kicker was Michael Sheen, who played a wild and crazy club owner program. The stark contrast from his Oscar-worthy (but the Academy didn’t think so) performance in Ron Howard’s Frost/Nixon was incredible yet believable. It’s kind of funny he plays a crazy character though, because, according to Wikipedia, his dad is a part-time Jack Nicholson look-alike. Hmmm. Interesting. Oh, also, nice cameo by Cillian Murphy in the beginning. I wish they would have used him more, but if his character’s part was expanded, then we’d be looking at a C or C- grade.

Last, but certainly not least, are the visual effects. As I said before, I thought this film was better than Avatar. Well, this is an area where I thought that Tron:Legacy prevailed once again. Instead of being there just for “oohs” and “aahs,” director Kosinski was smart with his effects, making them actually relevant to the main story, something James Cameron certainly did not do. While Inception will most likely come away with the visual FX Oscar in February (and most deservedly so), this film certainly is a worthy second.

You may criticize me for saying this is better than Avatar. You may think, “Oh, he’s crazy, what is he saying? Better than Avatar, seriously?” Those professional critics may say otherwise, but, in my opinion, they’re wrong. If there is a sequel to Tron:Legacy (in October, producer Steven Lisberger said that a sequel is in production), count me in as interested. Just bring back Daft Punk, please.

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