Tron Legacy is the long anticipated sequel to the 1982 Disney classic Tron. This stars Jeff Bridges (True Grit, The Big Lebowski), Garret Hedlund (Georgia Rule, Eragon), Olivia Wilde (TV's House) with appearances from Bruce Boxleitner (TV's Babylon 5), and Michael Sheen (Alice in Wonderland, Underworld).
Tron Legacy begins showing us a young boy listening to his father tell him of his adventures in "The Grid". The man leaves for work, and is never heard from again. This is all in 1989. Fast forward to the present and the young man has inherited the lion's share of his stock in his father's company. He is rich and not very interested in the business, so he leaves it in the hands of others. His father's old business partner, Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner) receives a page from the boy's father. The boy is Sam Flynn (Garret Hedlund) and his father is the Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges). Sam decides to go check out his father's business and shows up at an old arcade store (I think, that wasn't really explained) and while checking it, is sucked into the computer that his father went into in the original. Important note: Programs in this film look like humans for the most part, or are at least humanoid.
That is where this movie gets weird. I saw the original years ago when I was very young, maybe 6 and I don't remember much of it, this film expects you to remember what happened. I suppose I should have rented the first, but I'm still not sure that would have helped. I remember the bad guy being some Master Control program, this film throws that out the window and makes the heroes of the first film now become bad guys. What? Let me explain. When Sam lands, he is immediately taken to meet Clu which was a program created his father in the first one to create a perfect world. He and Alan had created Clu and Tron. Clu rebelled and made a crazy world where any imperfections are destroyed. Tron inexplicable shows up as a bad guy, no explanation is ever given, he just is bad. It's odd.
Sam will meet his real father and he will have a girl with him who is an oddity herself. She is part of a set of computer programs that just showed up one day. They are different because they have some human DNA, though how is never explained.
Together, this threesome will band together to try to take down the evil Clu and turn Tron good again.
I must say, I love a good scifi film. This was not it. I did not have high expectations for this, but I truly thought it would at least be fun. It wasn't. Why? Well, as any person who appreciates a film can tell you, special effects do not equal a good film. You have to have a story! And preferably one that tries to make sense. I was lost most of the way through this mess of a film. We never find out why Tron is bad. Oh, and why is this movie called Tron? We see him a few times near the end, that's it. We don't get given a reason why we should care either. Again, I understand it's a sequel, but with so many years since the first, we should at least be given a refresher and we don't get one.
Second, while Olivia Wilde is easy on the eyes, her character comes out of nowhere. She wasn't in the first one, and her showing up is explained by Kevin Flynn as "a miracle". Like the audience is going to say, "ok, we can buy that, it all makes sense now." It doesn't! It's stupid!
So, sure, I loved the effects, they were great. Jeff Bridges is a great actor as always. Garrett Hedlund was not. He doesn't show surprise when he lands in Tronland and never conveys any emotion. He's a terribel actor. Also, he suddenly can fight, though where he acquires those skills isn't explained. This was a patchwork film with pretty lights and some decent fight scenes. The best work and the only thing that saved this film from me dropping a house on it are the bike scene in Tronland and the ending in the ship. The rest was weird and confusing.
It is rated PG for fight scenes and one mild swear word. There is nothing offense here. The only thing this movie will offend is your intelligence. 1 1/2 star for the weak Tron: Legacy. Skip it.
I actually liked Tron :)
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