1. It's worth checking out.
2. If you decide to shell out your hard-earned dollars, IMAX 3D is the way to do it (if you're already spending $12, why not another $5) - not only is the sound superior, but like The Dark Knight, sections of this film were actually shot in the IMAX format, which means they fill up that entire, insanely large screen.
3. Check your brain at the door and enjoy the light-cycle battles, music, and general ooh-ah factor. Over-thinking this one left me in a pile of trouble.
I think I'll begin every review like this from now on! Especially on the blockbuster types, which to me are getting to a point where they're only worth it if they offer something at least a little unique. This one does, without a doubt. Still, it's far from perfect, so let's have a look.
About 20 years ago, as the story goes, Kevin Flynn disappeared from his role as the big boss at a world-renowned software company, called Encom. He also disappeared off the face of the earth - leaving his son Sam an orphan, and his company in the hands of greedy, evil board-member types (the only good one asks, "what is different about our product this year?" "This time we put a 12 on the box", is the reply). That one good guy is Kevin's old pal, who tells Sam he's gotten word from his absent father - go to the arcade and check it out. We get to watch Sam do the 1-minute reversal from his flat-out no to a reluctant yes, and soon enough he's at the arcade getting beamed up, or in, or however it works, and WHAM. He's in Narnia on a circuit board. Here's where Dad's been hanging out all this time.
Tron: Legacy is much like a fairy tale, but rather than being set in a fantastic world of lush, otherworldly beauty, it's set inside a computer. Never mind that most people have no romantic sentiment whatsoever for technology - the film works hard enough to depict the real world as more appealing than 'the grid', the specific system where this story takes place. The grid is beautiful in its own way - it has a cool, clean, neon sheen, and we're mostly supposed to find it dazzling, not cozy.
The actors, too, are doing exactly what they're supposed to be doing - the ones who aren't strictly speaking human do a good job of acting that way - Olivia Wilde in particular has a great knack for behaving just outside of normalcy - I wonder if the direction given to her was 'act like you're 8 years old, and have never seen another real person before'. The relatively new Garrett Hedlund is a good leading man for us to follow through it all, and Jeff Bridges is fun to watch as both a deeply patient Kevin Flynn and am evil program bent on taking over the world. Yes. Yes, that's what it was...
That lands us at the part of this whole thing that didn't work for me. I found myself thinking back to The Matrix, wishing for a little clarity as far how this world is supposed to work, what the rules are, etc. Technically, The Matrix had an advantage, in that it was a world within a computer designed and programmed to be indistinguishable from reality. People may not have thought about it, but MAN does that cut down on time. Characters in that film and its sequels only ever had to slow down to explain that rules can be bent or broken, but by and large, as the audience watches, most of the questions they have are answered - why is there gravity, sunlight, why can people die, and how. The Matrix got complex enough to allow for the distinction between people and programs, and we understood that clearly enough.
Tron: Legacy kept me at arm's length, because I always had questions. And I am normally a film goer who is eager to suspend my disbelief, but for some reason, this one just asked too much of me. That is not to say there weren't large stretches of this film that I enjoyed a lot - as I pointed out above, light-cycle battles, the whole aesthetic, daft punk's score, and all the performers had me going, but - well. There's a point in the middle of this picture at which Jeff Bridges has to deliver a lot of exposition about what has happened to keep him trapped in this world all this time. He speaks long enough to bring up something called 'isomorphic algorithms' and then stopped before he explained what they were. Sam's reactions informed me that they are special, and it's inferred that they are alive (they better be, or else the ending makes even less sense). Still, when characters have to get out some necessary exposition, you should be less confused than when they started talking, not more.
Those characters also have to work pretty hard to step through some of the clunky scripting while still appearing to have much life in them, and there were a few missed opportunities. For one thing, it's suggested that time moves more quickly in the grid, relative to the real word - and while they gave a solid figure somewhere, the real revelation that they blew past, and that Sam never seemed to register, was that the 20 years he experienced without his dad may have seemed like hundreds or thousands to Kevin. I would have greatly enjoyed a moment or two on that point, rather then more talk of isomorphic so-and-so's.
The film's knack for being obtuse aside, I'm still glad I saw it. There is a tradition being carried forwards here that I may be reading in to a little too deeply - but it strikes me that somewhere at its core, Tron films are about the reverence for all the good things that technology can do. There are lines about the potential to change just about every aspect of human life in here, and I only wish this film's reach equaled its rhetoric. Oh well, enjoy a fresh ride on the light-cycle.
