Tron was a revolutionary film. It featured both live-action and computer animation within the same scene utilising some very interesting and seemingly complex filming techniques. Though at times criticised for its fairly slow and dull storyline, it was nevertheless a marvel of film-making. Its success and cult following even led to a world in the game Kingdom Hearts II. Now a successor has been released: Tron: Legacy.
Tron: Legacy opens to Kevin Flynn, reprised by Jeff Bridges, talking to his son about the world of The Grid, where Tron and Clu, two programmes, are helping him build a stable and perfect system. He mentions a ‘miracle’ but tells his son that it is a story for another time. True to Hollywood tradition Flynn goes missing, so we have no idea what this miracle is.
The film cuts to 20 years later, where Kevin’s son, Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund), is now acting exactly like Chris O’Donnell in Batman Forever: riding his motorcycle really fast, being cheeky, and wearing a t-shirt to show off his muscles. However, where Dick Grayson was purely annoying, Sam is actually somewhat likeable. He’s not trying to live up to another; he’s just trying to do what he feels right and to make a mockery of a sham of a company.
In fact, the behaviour of Sam in this is similar to Kevin’s in Tron in a way. That is to say, he is breaking into a large company in order to enact justice. However, unlike Kevin, these seem to be for less selfish reasons as we are shown straight away that ENCOM, Kevin’s old company, is extorting people for the software that it produces.
Suffice to say, Sam achieves what he sets out to do and is later contacted by a friend of his father’s: Alan Bradley, reprised by Bruce Boxleitner, the man who created the programme Tron. He says he’s been contacted by Kevin, so Sam goes to the arcade seen in the first film and whilst there is sucked into The Grid.
Note that some of this plot has been used before in Tron: big corporation doing naughty stuff, person feels the company has done wrong, they go to stop them and then through a series of events get sucked into The Grid. However, this is all very brief. It is from here that we get an all new story and my word is it amazing!
We are taken through the games, which have been upgraded since 1982, and we are introduced to the main villain. From here there is a story detailing betrayal, discovery and destruction. Through a multitude of twists and turns we see both sides of the conflict between an authoritarian regime and just three who are fighting back, all in the aims of getting back to the real world and stopping the villain from the outside. This leads to a spectacular climax that leaves you wanting more, and hopefully you will get more as the ending is open for a sequel!
The effects of this film are perfect. The world, though computer generated, felt like it had weight, as if it actually existed. This is more than I could ever say for Avatar, where the world looked far too fake to be real. In The Grid we see the building, the technology in that world, the landscape, and it all looks so real, as if the creators of the film had actually built this world out of data, gone into the system and filmed on location. Also, surprisingly for me, I found the 3-D effects to be very good. In fact, the 3-D is used artistically, as the real world is shown in 2-D, whilst The Grid is 3-D, showing a difference between the two worlds, not only aesthetically but in the way we actually perceive it.
The effects don’t just stick to the landscape, however. There are many vehicles in the film that were computer generated that, yet again, looked realistic. The effects even went so far as to be an actor, as a younger version of Kevin as well as Clu, the computer programme created by him, are both computer generated. However, for the majority of the film I was fooled into believing this was actually Jeff Bridges.
The acting within this film was spot on. The actors delivered every line perfectly, which furthered the connections we had with the characters. However, this was accompanied by an absolutely superb script. One scene of note is the dinner scene, where the conversation flows perfectly and shows an awkward connection between the father and son who have not seen each other for 20 years. (Whilst on the subject of the dinner scene, I would like to bring up the fact that we have no idea where any of the food comes from. We see a lot of drinks, but they seem to fit in with the world. The food eaten here is pork as well as vegetables, which do not look even slightly like they fit in with the world nor do they seem to make sense.) We see throughout the film the growing connection between the father and son, which is quite endearing and builds up very well, unlike the clunky father-son connection in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Music-wise we have nothing to complain about as Daft Punk has delivered with a pretty atmospheric soundtrack. Daft Punk even had a cameo in the film as two MP3 programmes. Though initially confusing as to why they might be there (cameos in The Grid would seem strange) they seem to fit in with their robotic look.
Though Tron: Legacy can seem somewhat derivative of Tron within the opening I advise you stick it out and keep an open mind as the story is pretty good and the effects are amazing. You don’t need to be a fan of the original to enjoy this film, as any exposition needed is delivered early on, so newcomers can also enjoy the film. It’s received fairly mixed reviews, some saying it’s not ‘intellectual’ enough, but I have to disagree. Both serious and fun, Tron: Legacy is a film that can be enjoyed by most people. I suggest you go see it soon!
Final Verdict: 9/10
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