Even for all its technical prowess and Disney’s huge marketing push, Tron always seemed an odd choice for being designated holiday blockbuster status. The, nearly three decade late, sequel to a cult classic box office failure, it always felt like the story and world of Tron was never going to capture the attentions of the masses. I have little history with Tron, I recently watched the original for the first time but must confess that aside from the striking visuals and some ideas I found it a hard to engage with. It is fitting perhaps that some of these feelings transferred over to my thoughts on Legacy. In fact thinking back I still have some mixed emotions, I enjoyed the film and found it unique and fascinating on an aesthetic level, but never quite connected with the characters or story as I might. Set in the present the film follows Sam, the son of Kevin Flynn (Bridges, reprising his character from the original) who we learn early on disappeared a few years after the original film was set, never to return. Embittered against his father and his company Encom, Sam rebels in his own immature way and shirks the responsibility he was set to inherit.
More than the rest of the film, the opening pre-grid sequences feel rather forced and over simplified. The archetypes of the morally bankrupt cigar twirling villains who run Flynn’s company, versus the loveable rogue in need of direction are laid on thick with little room for subtlety. Unfortunately what this does is fail to adequately set up or inspire connection with Sam’s journey once he reaches the grid and finds his father. However once the action reaches the grid things improve, and in a nice riff on the original Sam finds himself passing through updated versions of the games that Flynn himself faced back in 1982. From the film’s first moments in the grid it is clear that here is where first time director Joseph Kosinski is most comfortable. Re-imagining the world in a way that feels modern and high tech, but also reverential to the first film, the production on the film is nothing short of breathtaking especially if you are fortunate enough to watch it in IMAX 3D. Not only is the look of the film remarkable but the way the Daft Punk score (fantastic in its own right) managed to pulse and flow through the film, the beating heart of the grid. It is a perfect blend of music and visuals and helps genuinely sell the film as a sensory experience.
Thankfully there is some interesting stuff to back up the design, once Sam meets up with his father, and Quorra, a program who he once rescued the film sets up a final goal of escaping the grid ahead of Clu, a duplicate of Kevin Flynn created to help bring order to the grid but who has since spent his time imposing totalitarian control over the world. Clu is an interesting choice for the villain of the piece, firstly and most obviously Clu is an entirely GGI version of Jeff Bridges circa 1989, an effect that, unfortunately, never quite works in the film. Within the grid it is slightly more forgivable, after all he is supposed to be a corrupted version of Flynn, but the truth is that as sophisticated as the tech is now, it fails to cross the uncanny valley, leaving each of Clu’s scenes feeling slightly off. The same tech is also used briefly for seeing Bridges’ character in the real world in the 1980’s, which feels like another misstep. It is a shame as a similar technique was used in Benjamin Button to completed convincing effect, but when a lot of your film revolves around this character it never failed to pull me slightly out of the film.
There has been a lot of criticism flying about regarding Garrett Hedlund as Sam, and whilst I don’t think he is the greatest or most charismatic actor around he is fine in the lead role. He is ably supported by Bridges who turns in solid work as usual, using his age and experience to good effect. The stand out character-wise has to be Olivia Wilde’s Quorra however, her mix of curiosity, loyalty and naiveté plays well and she injects a fair amount of life into the film from the moment she is introduced.
Overall the film plays out as you might expect, the action scenes are well staged and inventive, the story hampered by some coincidences late on and a frustrating lack of explanation for exactly how things in the grid work. Possibly this is because too much close scrutiny to the core ideas of Tron would make them fall apart, the notion of programs as people inside a computer was a lot more plausible I would imagine back in the early 80’s when knowledge of computers was still very low. Now they are so ubiquitous and technology so much better understood that the whole idea has a quaint retro feel to it regardless of the state of the art effects. This may bother some, but I didn’t mind, it felt like it was all in honour of the original film and its ideals.
So my feelings on Tron are somewhat mixed, not because I didn’t enjoy it per-se but because it felt like there was the potential for more, be it a more compelling story or characters or a further expansion of the ideas from the first film rather than a simple updating of many of them. Still as an experience it’s hard to not recommend a viewing of Tron if it in any way appeals to you, especially on the big screen, however I struggle to see it being a film that over time captures the minds of many, even in cult circles, the way the original did.
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