“Tron: Legacy” is a two-hour light show with a lot of CGI, a little style and not much by way of a fresh narrative. The original Tron, which took you behind the scenes of a video game, was ahead of its time. Wish I could say the same about this one. “Legacy’s” storyline lacks originality, resorting to the over-used cliché of the power-mad ruler seeking to eliminate his enemy and finding new territories to conquer. Admittedly, the graphics are pretty cool when our hero Sam (Garrett Hedlund), son of the missing Flynn (Jeff Bridges in both movies), is sucked into the Grid, a back-and-white landscape where humanoid ‘programs’ zip by on lightcycles. Briefly, Sam finds himself in an arena where gamers fight each other in a tourney of death. Then Sam meets Clu, Flynn’s creation and avatar, who has grown in power and is trying to eliminate his creator so he can cross over into the real world.
Hedlund is irritating at times and has a limited ability to convey emotions. Perhaps that’s because director Joseph Kosinski is more focused on the look of the graphics rather than the acting of his actors. Bridges, fresh off his Oscar win last year, brings some of the Zen from his Dude character (Coen’s Big Lebowski) to his older, and one would suppose wiser, Flynn. Michael Sheen, who does a turn as a cyber conspirator, is so over the top that he appears to be in the wrong movie. Olivia Wilde brings a mixture of innocence and sexiness to her role as warrior and Flynn’s only supporter. If you saw Tron, you’re probably going to see “Tron: Legacy.” Just don’t expect too much. 12/20/10
1 comment:
The one thing I can say about this film is how Versatile Jeff Bridges is as an actor. He can go from a very bad guy in Iron Man to a drunken country singer to win an Oscar to a software genius lost in the "Grid" in Tron, Legacy. Not my kind of film but maybe its yours. If so, go see it.
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