One
of the best surprises of the year has been saved for an early Christmas
gift for your ever-luvvin’ LMD. Having never seen the original 1982
film, I had precious little reference about the world of Tron besides
old clips of what was then state-of-the-art computer animation mixed
with live action. What kind of sequel could come out of a film that was
famous for being a flop of the most expensive order? A bloody good one
is what, and one of the most entertaining rides of 2010.
Right
off the bat, we’re given a continuation of Disney’s adherence to make
all things Tron a showcase for their digital arts with a scene meant to
take place twenty years prior of a father telling his small son what the
child thinks is a bedtime story. This father is played by an impossibly
youthful Jeff Bridges. The little boy cannot know that this is the last
time he’ll see his dad, neither will he allow himself to believe the
worst, so the worst becomes cowardice, and the son, now a young man,
thinks his father simply ran away from the pressures of life as a sort
of pre-Steve Jobs. It’s this resentfulness that has Sam Flynn, heir to
the ENCOM throne, avoiding anything to do with his old man’s beat;
allowing well-paid board members, including his pop’s old running buddy,
Alan Bradley, to take the reins, only making his presence known via
extremely expensive occasional pranks. A message in the night over
Alan’s ancient beeper has Sam examining the hidden recesses of his dad’s
lab, and in a laser blast he finally understands where exactly his
father disappeared to. The world inside the computer is all black,
shiny and neon. It’s The Grid, where every being is referred to as a
programme and an unfortunate human unlucky enough to find themselves
where they shouldn’t be is called a user and reviled by the programmes
accordingly. A glowing disk on each person’s back carries their entire
history, every thought they’ve ever had and every place they’ve ever
been. Sam receives his after he is caught by sentries, dressed by some
pulchritudinously-pixeled Thierry Mugler refugees, and sent into an
arena to fight for his life like a Roman gladiator. Always a bit of a
roughneck, Sam very quickly learns the ways of combat whether by deadly,
light-up Frisbee or pop-up motorcycle battles. It’s clear that Sam is a
special dude, so he’s brought to the de facto emperor of The Grid, a
fellow who looks remarkably familiar. After Clu, the man with his
father’s face tries to kill him, Sam is saved by Quorra, a fetching
young girl who really knows her way a mainframe and taken far from the
shiny neon city. For the second time in less than a half hour, Sam is
face to face with the man he hasn’t seen in twenty years, but judging by
the grey in his beard and abundance of wrinkles, this might be the right
one. Family reunion done, Sam’s priority to is get them both back to
their world, but now that he’s provided a nice little trail back to the
elder Flynn, Clu isn’t about to let his creator, who he’s wanted to
capture for so long to make use of that juicy disc full of knowledge,
depart without a proper goodbye. Making their way through the
underbelly of The Grid, Sam and Quorra attempt to find Castor, a shadowy
figure that will get them to a portal out of their digital purgatory
because he’s on the side of the good guys, right? Right?
Good
stuff this. Tron: Legacy is beyond all a feast for the eyes (- And
in a very special instance, for the ears as well, but we’ll get to that
later.). The visuals are utterly dazzling from the moment Sam finds
himself in the midst of the dark, neon-lit metropolis with an enormous,
arched patrol ship bearing down on him. We share Sam’s awe at not only
his situation, but by the impossibility of it. Within moments of his
arrival, Sam watches as a fellow prisoner would rather de-resolute
rather than face the games. We soon see why. The arena battles aren’t
just marvels because of their digital locations: Director Joseph
Kosinski is wise enough to bring in martial artists who look great
whipping around in the sleek, skintight latex Tron wear, so when people
are running away from a glowing Frisbee, the discs are wielded so
artfully it looks like there’s a reason for the fear. The big
motorcycle set piece is gorgeous and thrilling. Having only seen clips
of the original, I finally get why this was such a big deal. In a bit
of video game brilliance, the luminescent vapour trails of the riders’
exhaust turn into solid, lethal barriers which cage and force opponents
to crash in fiery explosions that light up the stadium. Benign-looking
sticks transform into slick, curvy bikes and race cars. Later when
Clu’s patrols pursue the Flynns, the guards careen through the air on
the dragonfly-like wings that sprout out of their uniforms. So handy is
their gear that they can even turn again into heavily-armed fighter
planes. Cool stuff, all of it.
Cool
as well is the not-quite-cameo appearance of Jeff Bridges as pappy
Flynn. When I spoke to Mr. Bridges in 2009 while he was promoting Crazy
Heart, he told me the role he was playing in Tron: Legacy was very
small. I’d no idea he was such a camera hog. He’s all over this movie;
as his younger self in the flashback, in his digital form, Clu, then as
the real Kevin Flynn, who has exiled himself into the mountains away
from The Grid, living a Buddha-like existence that’s thoroughly tested
with the arrival of his son. Some of the film’s funniest moments occur
when Flynn finds it hard to cope with Sam’s rashness, “You’re messin’
with my Zen thing, man”. How awfully Lebowski of you, Mr. Bridges.
“Radical, man!” is another Flynn-ism from another time. Garrett
Hedlund does a serviceable job as Sam and is believable in the many
action sequences. He doesn’t exactly light up the screen, but is just
fine. The waifish, wide-eyed Olivia Wilde is Quorra, the ward of Flynn,
Sr.; eager to see the world outside The Grid she’s learnt so much about.
Mulleted and dressed head to toe in neon white, Michael Sheen is a
scream as a shady nightclub owner who clearly needs to start a Grid
production of Cabaret so he can play the MC. Sheen lets the camp
floodgates loose; twirls a cane around and chews the scenery gloriously,
as if he’s been telling Daft Punk what to play all their lives … which
brings us to one of the coolest things of all about Tron: Legacy.
Daft
Punk’s soundtrack. Yes, this needs its own paragraph because that’s how
good the score was. I protest that the “Music by” end credit didn’t
roll until perhaps eight names in. Who cares about the writers and
producers? The score is so superior and integral to the action and
moods of this film that the composers should have had star billing.
Each song not only perfectly punctuates a given moment, but truly
carries the action to a new level. It’s not just what you see on screen
that makes your heart pound, it’s the electrified pulse under it all
masterfully arranged by those two French dudes in the helmets (- Who
make a smooth cameo in the nightclub … maybe.). “The Grid” features
Jeff Bridges as guest vocalist, while “End of the Line” samples sounds
from the original Tron video game. With a score that varies from
classical motifs {“Adagio for TRON”}, to tribal percussion {“Arena,”
”Disc Wars”}, this is Daft Punk with a passion like I’ve never heard,
though the presence of high-powered synths and funkdafied beats on
“Derezzed” indisputably reminds us who they are. They absorbed the film
perfectly, capturing its “the future is now” aesthetics and atmosphere
while creating an audial landscape within the CGI world. Tron: Legacy
is the best score since Blade Runner. I can’t imagine what the movie
would have been without this music.
With
so many things in the win column, one can forgive some incidentally
hilarious continuity errors (- Wait, isn’t he not supposed to
have his disc?) and some slight drags when the action stops, but
they are few and the pacing generally works well. However, although we
are clearly seeing top-of-the-line digital special effects, the face of
young Jeff Bridges/Clu is still creepy. For some reason, his cheeks
look hamster-puffy but hard and the skin just doesn’t move naturally. I
guess we’re still just short of being able to fully replicate the
intricacies of the human visage. My other qualm is with the narrative,
with the inexplicable disguising of one character from the past. The
character is shown and explained during a flashback to the 1982 film,
then never to be seen in full again. As there is much riding on this
person’s shoulders throughout the movie, it would have been nice to see
them as something other than a dark helmet and some grunting noises, the
presence of either is never made clear. Considering all the CGI they
used on Bridges, the same could’ve been done for this character and made
a more rounded, fulfilling story.
Feh,
enough nitpicking. Tron: Legacy is such an enjoyable, totally visceral
experience that these trifles amount of nothing in light of all the
action and pure escapist fun. I’m not sure if it was Disney’s plan to,
but once again some twenty years later the name Tron – Legacy this time
– represents a new height in digital cinema and pure entertainment. It
really is the eighties again. Radical, man.
One
of the best surprises of the year has been saved for an early Christmas
gift for your ever-luvvin’ LMD. Having never seen the original 1982
film, I had precious little reference about the world of Tron besides
old clips of what was then state-of-the-art computer animation mixed
with live action. What kind of sequel could come out of a film that was
famous for being a flop of the most expensive order? A bloody good one
is what, and one of the most entertaining rides of 2010.
