Reviewed by Lamar Kukuk
12/18/10
We've all got our own “buried
treasure” movies, ones that aren't really famous or widely acclaimed that
we love and relentlessly recommend to others. In my case, the 1982
sci-fi flick TRON has always been such a film. Steven Lisberger's
wildly imaginative flick takes us inside a computer world where programs
are imbued with a little piece of the souls of their creators. It's
best known as the first film to make significant use of computer animation,
and indeed no other movie looks or sounds even remotely like it, but for
me it's always been that detailed philosophical riff on the dawn of video
games and home computing that grabbed me. Add a wonderfully loopy
lead performance by Jeff Bridges and the largest stage upon which Bruce
Boxleitner ever got to display his all-American TV heroism and you have
a film that never fails to delight me. Turns out, despite its commercial
failure and status as a historical footnote, TRON has quietly been
a lot of people's buried treasure over the years, including many a filmmaker
who's tried to mount a sequel. But it was only when Joseph Kosinski
shot test footage with Bridges and showed it at Comic-Con '08 to wildly
enthusiastic response that Disney actually greenlit a follow-up.
TRON: Legacy is that rarest of animals, a massive production
on the cutting edge of technology that's been conceived almost exclusively
for a niche audience. And as a TRON fan, I thank the studio
because I loved it to pieces. The results of someone who may have
seen the movie either years ago or never may vary substantially.
But there's no questioning the amazing visuals, state-of-the-art 3D and
yet another marvelous star turn by Bridges that includes the most successful
use yet of special effects to de-age a star. The details might confuse
the living daylights out of those late to the party, but us children of
the 80's on the guest list will have a blast.
After his adventure inside
the computer systems of Encom, Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) when on to create
a hit TRON video game and lead his company to great success, all the while
preaching his hope for a future in which man and machine could learn from
each other. He told his son Sam (Owen Best) all about his goals for
Encom before one night disappearing without a trace. Sam grew up
(as Garrett Hedlund) and became a brilliant thorn in the side of the company,
now run for ruthless profit despite the objections of Kevin's old partner
Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner). One day, Alan receives a mysterious
page from the long-disconnected office at Flynn's Arcade, and suggests
that Sam go check it out. He does, and experiences the same fate
as his father, dematerialized and transported inside a computer world where
he's forces to play gladiatorial games involving deadly throwing disks
and light cycles. This world is ruled by Clu (Bridges again), a cyber-doppelganger
of Kevin created to help in the construction of a brave new computer world.
But Flynn succeeded too well and now lives in exile with Quorra (Olivia
Wilde), a program herself on the run from Clu's forces. Over his
father's objections, Sam struggles to reach a portal back to the real world
before it closes. But that's exactly what Clu is counting on:
his plans don't stop with domination of the machine world.
I'll start with the part
of TRON: Legacy everyone can agree on: it look amazing.
The original TRON mixed graphics that were amazing for its time
with actors on sets who were hand-tinted by animators to look computerized.
Here, a mixture of remarkable CGI landscapes, costumes that actually lit
up, and amazing 3D create one of the most fully-realized sci-fi universes
I've seen. The light cycle and plane action sequences take full advantage
of the effects advancements of the last 28 years, adding additional dimensions
and strategy to “games” originally designed to the 2D specifications of
classic arcade games. But there's no more impressive effects achievement
here than Clu. In Terminator Salvation,
we saw Arnold Schwarzenegger pulled out of the original Terminator
and placed flawlessly in new footage doing new things, but here Bridges
actual brand-new performance has been rendered in a face modeled after
the one he had in the mid-80's. The results are not 100%: Clu
looks a little like a gene-splicing experiment between Jeff and his brother
Beau, and there are moments when the CGI shows a tad. But the fact
that there are moments at all when it doesn't is amazing, and for most
of the film, Clu seems to be nothing less than Bridges wearing makeup that
makes him 30 years younger.
Like most filmmakers shooting
in 3D, Kosinski focuses on depth and surfaces rather than showy 3D effects,
and what the added dimension does to enhance the realism of his computer
world is pivotal. He opts for the Wizard of Oz strategy of
filming our world in 2D and the TRON world in 3, making it subtly but substantially
different. There's an unnatural shine to most everything we see there,
and things like the shattering of defeated programs into a million pieces
and a massive program army seem all the most like real sights because we
can distinguish the dimensional difference between all their component
parts. It helps that the army sequence is also one of the movie's
dramatic highlights: things look all the more awesome when they actually
ARE awesome.
I will admit that some of
the details of what Kevin and Clu are fighting are slippery at best, and
the screenplay credited to four writers lacks the smooth philosophical
precision that make Lisberger's creation so neat. But the central
conflict, Kevin forced to face the consequences of an over-reaching God
Complex with the help of his son, is very strong, and it helps that Bridges
is once again at the top of his game. He's aided by hair, makeup
and costume departments that make him look as cool as he's ever appeared
on film (seriously, that black robe ROCKS!). What made his TRON
work so fun and unique is the amount of Dude in it, and once again he essays
the action hero as closet hippie to perfection. Hedlund isn't doing
anything nearly so unusual, but he's got the right amount of spring in
his step and the father-son chemistry is strong. Wilde, a personal
favorite from my beloved TV series House, M.D., also brings a lot
of spunk to a character who is memorably naïve for a butt-kicking
computer program. But nobody swings for the fences harder than Michael
Sheen, who plays Castor, a program Sam goes to for help. Castor owns
a very 80's club and has a look that seems to have walked straight off
old-school MTV (no reason for styles and fashions to change inside a computer),
so Sheen plays the role almost exactly as David Bowie might have at the
time, utterly campily mad. It's also cool to see Boxleitner back
as Alan and briefly going through the same de-aging process to reprise
his role as TRON. Of course, he's also involved in some of the movie's
muddier stuff, which I blame on late-game reshoots that might have been
designed to increase his role at the lowest possible cost.
This would be a fun sci-fi
extravaganza under any circumstances, but what puts it over the top to
be a true delight is the painstaking dept it owes to the original film.
Dialog is reprised, character and their spawn (look for an uncredited Cillian
Murphy in a cameo as the son of David Warner's TRON heavy) brought
back and visual motifs and shots referenced with reckless abandon.
And perhaps best of all, the electronic music duo Daft Punk (Thomas Bangalter
& Guy-Manuel De Homem-Christo) deliver a sensational riff on Wendy
Carlos's original TRON score that'll have you humming its themes
for days. Little details like Journey's hit “Separate Ways (Worlds
Apart)” playing on the jukebox at Flynn's Arcade when Sam turns on the
power (Journey recorded two original songs for TRON) and the tiny
models on Kevin's mantle that match the shape of the original movie's wacky
animated critter Bit just add to the fun for fans.
I re-watched the original
TRON on DVD the night before catching TRON: Legacy,
and I highly recommend a refresher for anyone who hasn't seen it lately.
Legacy is the rare sequel that really benefits from proximity to
its predecessor both because of the way it riffs on it and also because
of the impressive way it builds upon the characters and relationships rather
than simply repeating them. For non-fans, it delivers boatloads of
spectacle, and some of the best live-action 3D visuals yet. And maybe
a reason to check out a really cool 80's flick just a couple years before
its 30th anniversary. |
