Movie Review: Tron Legacy

Tron LegacyYou might remember I reviewed the original Tron a while ago (it fell quite a bit short of my cherished memories). I’d watched it with TRC, and last Thursday I took him to work with me for our annual pre-Christmas take TRC to work and a movie tradition, and so I took him to Tron: Legacy. I hadn’t been leaning that direction–seemed a little grown up to me, judging from the ads–but it was that or Yogi Bear, and there was no way that movie was going to pry one red cent out of my cold clammy hands, so Tron Legacy it was. I checked into the ratings a bit more to see why it was PG, and from what I read, I felt TRC could handle it.

How was it?

About like the first one. It’s got really cool special effects, the 3D was pretty nifty, and the story pretty much stunk. At least in the first movie, there was this kind of cool concept of what it would be like to be living in one of the video games at the time. My thought for this one was that it was going to explore what it would be like if that video game world continued evolving. I think this preconception was justified, seeing as how that’s how they’d advertised it. What I ended up getting was this hodgepodge of mysticism that did for Tron about what metachlorians did for the Force–tried to explain something cool, and by doing so, make it crappy.

What am I supposed to take away from this supposed evolution of video games? Apparently, the idea that video game people are stupid and trendy and complete lemmings (the lemming part probably makes sense, I suppose–they’re so used to doing what other people tell them to). But there are these other non-program, non-user beings that sprang into existence somehow, and somehow they’re going to change our real world if Jeff Bridges can remember for long enough that he’s not playing the Dude in this movie. Honestly, I just couldn’t feel concerned for anything that happened, because I had no clue how it would have any sort of ramifications for the characters involved, and even if I had understood, I didn’t care for the characters. Son wants his daddy, Daddy wants his son, blah blah blah insert generic yearnings here.

So really, it’s a testament to how cool the graphics were that I’m willing to give it two stars. (Though looking back on it, I’m thinking of downgrading that to a star and a half.) What else did it have going for it? An awesome soundtrack. Any time I got bored or fed up, I could close my eyes and listen to the goodness Daft Punk brought to the table this time. I’m considering buying it even. It was that good.

What did TRC think? He got to watch video game action for 2 hours. He thought it was cool. Which means that in twenty five years or so, he’ll watch this with his son, and he’ll be disappointed. The circle will be complete, and chances are Disney will be coming out with Tron: Revolution just in time for the cycle to continue.

Anyway. To sum up, you should see this in the theater if you want to see the cool shiny 3D. Otherwise, I’d recommend skipping it entirely and buying the soundtrack.

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