Movie Review – Tron Legacy

A few weeks ago, I had the chance to go watch Tron Legacy in 3D with Charlie from AussieAsians blog.

The film was quite enjoyable and I actually watched the 1982 Tron prior to prep myself for this sequel… a sequel set 27 years later! You don’t really have to watch the first film, but it would definitely help with knowing what some things were and also just so you can appreciated how advance we’ve come in CGI technology.

I’d recommend you go see this film if you haven’t and if it’s still in theatres.

Sam Flynn, a motorbike pro but not a gaming pro like his father was in Tron.

Essentially, Tron Legacy is pretty similar to the original Tron. We follow our hero, this time Sam Flynn, into “The Grid” which is the digital world within a computer. As soon as he’s there, he is placed into gladitorial games where losing means death! Once the games are over, it’s pretty much a mission to get out of The Grid, while defeating the bad guy along the way, Clu, a program that took over The Grid.

While watching the film, I noticed some similarities between Tron Legacy and Christopher Nolan’s Batman films. We follow a heir to a billion dollar company that cares more about the people, Gotham’s citizens for Bruce and the Netizens for Sam. And both men grew up without parents. I guess Tron is Batman for kids, cause I think The Dark Knight Rises will just get darker.

“I guess I need to be more kiddy friendly, or else Tron 3 will be all over The Dark Knight Rises.”

The film had some fantastic action scenes and I especially love all the cool fighting choreography in the film. Clu’s personal dark stormtroopers were badass and his main ninja assasin, Rizzler was the Snake Eyes of this film. And what’s better than a spinning disc of doom? Two discs of doom of course!

Rizzler just enjoying a nice afternoon bike ride.

Actually, besides Snake Eyes, Rizzler somehow reminded me of… Raiden, of the Metal Gear Solid franchise! And there was also another scene in the film when Sam gets dressed by the 4 Sirens (i think), which hauntingly reminded me of the Beauties in MGS4.

Maybe I just have a fetish of dudes in exoskeleton suites and high heels.

Besides the digital overacting of Clu, the cast of Tron Legacy was pretty good. Jeff Bridges and Garrett Hedlund had a real nice father and son moment that, if you weren’t careful, I’m sure you’d shed some tears and Olivia Wilde channeled a Matrix Neo performance as the program, Quorra.

“It’s alright, let your man tears flow.”

There was one major flaw to the film though, and that is the final act of the film felt very weak and sometimes, illogical. If you haven’t seen the film yet, please skip the next part.

Sam and Quorra visits an owner of some sort of hip club in one of the tallest buildings of the Grid city, Castor, played by Martin Sheen. We learn that he’s actually a bad guy and then he gets killed off by Clu when he asks that he is given control of the city when Clu leaves. It would’ve been much better if his character was introduced earlier in the film and made this deal with Clu, or at least showed that he’s some sort of competitor/key player on the Grid.

The film also seems to lose some logic when our trio finds a freight train that takes them directly to the portal. I can’t remember if this freight train was built by Kevin Flynn or not, but he did say that the portal was kept far so that it was out of reach by others. Well, if it was so out of reach, why was Clu able to get there on this same freight train?

Another plot of the film was that Clu wanted Flynn’s disc, so that he can bring his army into the real world. Well, if all he needed was a user’s disc, why didn’t he just take Sam’s in the beginning?

All in all though, I did enjoy the film. Watching it in 3D was great even though I didn’t realise I was watching a 3D film after a certain point. And if it’s because of the story, then this film delivered.

No doubt, there will be a Tron 3, the film definitely left some clues to what would be in the next film. The return of Tron (not Rizzler), The Grid technology utilised on the Internet (think of it as The Matrix) and a super Old Clu that has the smartness and super powers of Kevin Flynn.

Oh, and I’ve got a feeling that Cillian Murphy will be the main antagonist of Tron 3. He’s about the same age as Sam Flynn and is a top programmer at ENCOM. No doubt, when this digitising technology and Quorra is an ISO, would result in some sorta geek fest.

Ah, Olivia Wilde, I can’t wait to see you back in Tron 3 and maybe less like a robot.Visit us at: http://www.bernardlau.com.au

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