A Legacy Up

I finally caught up with Tron: Legacy this week, and got more or less what I expected out of it. Maybe a bit more, actually. It was certainly a worthy successor to the original Tron, in that the two films felt very much connected despite the 28 years between them.

The visuals of the virtual world are truly spectacular. There were perhaps one or two moments where I caught myself wondering if perhaps things looked too realistic, that perhaps things had been pushed too far beyond the abstract environments of the first film. But I quickly decided that Tron: Legacy was a reasonable take on what the original filmmakers probably would have done if they could have. Nearly all the things from the original reappear here, from Recognizers and light cycles to data sailers and disc wars, and everything looks really cool.

Well, everything. The biggest, most critical visual effect of the movie is a person -- the CG-rendered Jeff Bridges used to portray Clu and young "flashback" Kevin Flynn. And it flat out does not work at all. Not for one scene, not for one moment. I'm about to spend a lot of time and words on this, which is probably going to make you think I liked Tron: Legacy less than I did. But "Faux Bridges" is employed so heavily in the film that it demands an equally lengthy response.

I've seen still frames from Tron: Legacy floating about the internet, and in most of those frozen moments, this CG creation is a wholly convincing likeness. But the moment they try to map a performance onto it, the fakery rings out. Oddly, the part that this digital creation nails completely are the eyes -- the element that has torpedoed many a creepy human in past, fully CG-animated features. (Exhibit A: The Polar Express, aka "Hell Ride to Creepy Town.") But everything else, particularly the jaw, is a disaster. The mouth moves like a badly synced work of stop-motion animation, the skin looks waxy and cold, and the hair doesn't move naturally.

If this rendering were used only to portray the computer construct of Clu, you could possibly "no prize" your way into accepting this pervasive falseness as appropriate to a character that isn't real. But the very first scene of the film employs the Madame Toussaud meets Frankenstein creature as the real Flynn, in a tender heart-to-heart with his young son. The film then puts the simulacrum in one impossible-to-realize situation after another, as though they were deliberately setting up the beleaguered effects team to fail. When Clu confronts the real Bridges in a windstorm at the climax of the movie, the mind just flat out rebels.

But let's get back on the grid here and talk about other elements of the film. The storytelling of this sequel is improved over that of the original. It's still flawed in places, though in many of the same ways that, again, make it feel very much in the spirit of its predecessor. Legacy does a better job of providing more "connective tissue" between set pieces, explaining how characters get from one place to the next, and why. But it still falls short on providing context for things. Sam arrives in the v-world in a facsimile of the arcade, but leaves in a shaft of light at the end of retractable bridge? Uh, okay. Kevin Flynn can destroy Clu whenever he wants to, if he chooses that he wants to? I guess.

The portrayal of the characters is a lot stronger than the first Tron. The emotional core of the film could have pushed even farther for my tastes, but its heart was at least in the right place by centering the story around Flynn, his orphaned son, and their reunion. The writing does a better job of setting up why Sam has the skills necessary to survive in v-world (where the original left you wondering how playing video games could translate to decidedly physical activities). It also brings a smart treatment of Kevin Flynn who, having been cut off from the real world for two decades, behaves like he's trapped in the 1980s, tossing off "radical" slang.

Some of the new characters are interesting, particularly the self-indulgent Castor. I never would have picked Michael Sheen for such a part, but he seems to relish every second of screen time. And Olivia Wilde as Quorra makes for a far more capable female character than the original film.

Overall, Tron: Legacy, like its predecessor, is a movie that relies more on its visuals than anything else. But while the first Tron, in my estimation, barely squeaked by in the other areas, this sequel makes more of an effort. I give Tron: Legacy a B-.

And if you haven't seen it yet, here's a quick footnote: I concur completely with those who have said this film is not worth seeing in 3D. The "Wizard of Oz" treatment doesn't really work, presenting the v-world in 3D and the real world in standard 2D (except, inexplicably, for the opening push-in shot of the home of Sam's grandparents). It makes the opening of the film an even longer wait to get to "what you came to see," and when it arrives, doesn't really add much to the already eye-popping visuals. Save yourself the preposterous 3D "up-charge."