“Tron: Legacy”- that’s really all you need to say about this movie, isn’t it? Whether you love it or hate it, this is the legacy that “Tron” will leave on the world: it stinks. First thing we see in this movie is Jeff Bridges’ character, Kevin Flynn, talking to his son. The only problem is that it’s not Jeff Bridges. The director decided it would be awesome to make a clone of Bridges through CGI. This would have been fine if they had not shown his face or just kept the camera behind the man’s head, but they gave us a full facial of a fake, young Jeff Bridges. Not ten minutes into this film and I’ve already found something to pick on. Maybe the great story will overcome the CGI Jeff? Nope.
Before I get ahead of myself, let’s just go through the worst things that “Tron” got wrong. First and foremost is the story. Its execution is flawed in just about every way you can imagine, most notably in plot holes, clichés, and poor character design. If you stop to think for a moment about the story, you’ll see this entire movie fall apart under its own weight. For example, at the very beginning of the movie, we see Sam (Garrett Hedlund) the protagonist, do all of these James Bond-like moves while sneaking into the headquarters of his father’s company, Encom, to upload the new OS that they developed; presumably as a torrent to The Pirate Bay.
The problem with this is that he owns the company. If he really wanted to upload the new program all he would have had to do is walk into the office in broad daylight, grab the program, take it home, and then upload it. So why did he have to break in, steal the program, and parachute off of the roof? It makes no sense. Of course, this was probably a tool for the director to explain how Sam could acclimate so quickly to the lightcycles and disc wars once he’s in the grid. Let’s face it, if he had no previous experience with this kind of stuff, he’d be a pretty weak character.
This isn’t the only glaring plot hole in the movie either; one of the biggest is when Sam meets up with Quorra (Olivia Wilde), another character that looks interesting but gets no development. It happens when they escape from the clutches of our main antagonist, Clu (Bridges); she busts him out in an awesome, glowing light-dune buggy that I must have missed that in the last “Tron” movie.
In any case, they break out of the grid and go off-roading in this bleak dark landscape. When Sam asks why they aren’t being followed, Quorra says, “Their vehicles aren’t modified to work off the grid.” Fine. I can believe that. What I can’t believe is that not fifteen minutes later, after Sam meets up with Flynn, Clu and company enter their hideout, having tracked Sam’s lightcycle when he left to go back onto the grid. They just went where the script said they could not go.
A lot of people argue that "they just took one of their rectifiers to the hideout." In that case, why didn’t they follow them immediately after they escaped? Of course, the counter to this is "it’s all part of Clu’s master plan." Did that plan also include killing Sam, the only way he could have found Flynn? He was doing a pretty good job of that during the previous battle.
These two mistakes aren’t quite movie breakers for me anyway, but what totally destroyed everything for this movie was the villain’s plot. The entire premise is fundamentally broken, irrational, and devoid of logic. You know what that does to the character that thought up this broken plan? It makes them look incompetent. An incompetent villain like Clu sucks out all the tension and conflict in the film because he doesn’t pose a serious threat to everyone.
There are lots of holes, but the biggest holes in this guys’ plot to take over the world would have to be the fact that he’s counting on the ability that programs will be able to get out of the grid and into the real world. There is no premise to base this idea off of; there’s no way for him to know that this is possible. Wouldn’t it have been better to send someone ahead of the rest of his massive army to find out if he could even leave the grid?
The other and biggest hole is this: Clu has this gigantic army, but they’re all equipped with discs and glowing batons. They are supposed to invade the United States of America; you know they’re going to run into a tiny little problem: The United States Marine Corps, National Guard, Army, Air Force, and Navy. They just don’t look like they are a force to take over the world; heck, most people would probably think that there’s an Anime Convention going on down the road.
I think I’ve carefully outlined this movie’s flaws. I could go into greater detail, but there are some good things that “Tron” did. Obviously, the first one was to make money, which means that people obviously enjoyed it. The visuals in this movie were absolutely stunning. If you have the choice, go see this in 3D, but the 2D version looks great too. Also, when I heard that Daft Punk was going to make the soundtrack, I honestly couldn’t contain my glee. They do a beautiful job in fleshing out even the worst scenes. With this on their resume, I really hope we’ll get more great film soundtracks from them.
So the final verdict on “Tron” is: stay away. Wait until it comes out on Blue-ray or DVD and rent it. If you love it, buy it. I will do neither.
-by Joshua Sanchez
