Tron's charm lies in the campiness it has acquired since its release. However, while watching it, I began to suspect that some of it was built-in from the get-go. Certain scenes, particularly those that feel like the foreplay portion of a low-budget sci-fi porno, you can almost see the actors fighting against smiles that betray their awareness of their project's stupidity. These brief flickers make the cult classic feel more like an inside joke than a proper feature film, which is lucky for Tron, because cinematically, it's an underwhelming affair.Tron was ground-breaking for its time thanks in large part to the copious computer animation used in the film's construction. The visuals are akin to what you might see if you watched Ms. Pac Man birth HAL's baby while tripping on Smurf-grown acid. While the dreamy fluorescent light tricks are laughable by today's standards, they're iconic for a reason. It's a visually well-defined world that stands completely on its own. No other film, not even its recent sequel, achieves a similar identity.
Of course, the gee-whiz techno vistas are more or less all you get with this one. The plot is a jumbled mess of misdirected metaphor and laughable characterization, and the action scenes are slow-paced and laughable in their simplicity (they're more or less a slow-paced Pong variant). The pay-off is a one-line return to the real world that fails to justify any attempts to follow the logic of the story. Still, when you're watching something as bizarrely hallucinogenic as Tron, you aren't doing so for the narrative prowess, but for the experience. And boy, is this an experience.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Whereas the original Tron benefitted from its knowing ridiculousness, its sequel suffers from an aching self-seriousness that saps the film of any fun, save from a brief appearance by Michael Sheen, the only cast member who apparently enjoyed himself while making this boring piece of clinical minimalism.
Perhaps more disappointing is the film's visual presentation. While the special effects are astounding, and the art direction is sure (if gloomy), the film makes everything too sleek and thus removes any sense of connection to the digital world of the previous film. Of course, some of the messiness there was due to the technical constraints of the time, but therein lied Tron's charm, and that charm is completely absent here. Instead, Legacy takes a sleek, hard, black approach. The neon lines of light accessorizing the characters are minimal and stylish, no longer the omnipresent facade of the world and its inhabitants. For being Tron's sequel, Legacy seems strangely eager to distance itself from its predecessor, at least visually.
Even more disappointing is the implementation of the film's 3-D. Some odd choices regarding the focus of certain shots are nauseating, even painful to look at. At its best, the 3-D is unnoticeable (or not present, as some scenes are presented in 2-D). At its worst, it's sloppily half-assed. For a film revolving around the progress of technology, it's a shame to see cinema's latest technical fad put to such ill use.
Story-wise, Tron Legacy is all exposition. Numerous flashbacks vie for the audience's interest but fail to capture it. There's still too much techno-babble to really engage with these characters (or to fully understand what's going on), and the returning characters fail to make an impression. Flynn (Jeff Bridges) is distant and selfish for much of the movie, while Tron himself (Bruce Boxleitner) isn't given the screentime or attention the series' titular character deserves.
Disney probably hoped that Tron Legacy would fill in the sci-fi blockbuster gap that Avatar so skillfully filled last holiday season, but Avatar this film is not. The thumping techno soundtrack is often reminiscent of a heartbeat, which is ironic, as heart is something that Legacy utterly lacks. It's as cold and lifeless as the villainous programs themselves.
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