Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund; Eragon, Four Brothers) is the son of the famous and missing computer games genius Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges; Iron Man, the forthcoming True Grit remake), in 1989 he has a loving relationship with his father who one day says he will show him 'The Grid' and with that he disappears. Fast forward to 2010, Sam is now the silent majority in his father's company, a base jumping, computer hacking vigilante against the company that made his father so famous. After a stunt enabling the company's new product to go viral for free (no God, not for free!) his father's best friend (Bruce Boxleitner, the original TRON) tells him of a page he gets from his father's arcade, that hasn't been in operation since 1989 (ooooo, spooky). With a sudden curiosity about his father's previous life as an arcade gaming genius (or with nothing better to do, Sam goes to the arcade and quite easily uncovers his father's old computer (a touchscreen interface circa 1989) and before you know it BAM!, Sam's in The Grid (plot moved along nicely, we'll deal with the emotional resonance later, or not).
The Grid is a wonderfully slick, black universe filled with glass surfaces and computer generated backgrounds and it looks great, there are nods to the vehicles used in the first Tron movie (particularly an enhanced Lightcycle scene) and everybody dresses in slinky tight leather. The overall tone of Tron: Legacy is that of a dark, dramatic and intense world and unfortunately the script follows suit. Kevin Flynn (Bridges) gets the funniest lines but those are few and far between and at least one of those is unintentionally funny because of his Zen like portrayal, anybody who has seen The Big Lebowski can't help but be reminded of The Dude, just a little. For the overall tone the audience is expected to feel deeply for these characters with very little background, the fans of the original TRON will understand how Sam idolises his father and everything he's created because they have done the same to Jeff Bridges for many years because of his starring role but I can't help feeling that the reality (if you can call anything reality in a film like this may be somewhat different) it may be a cliche but it would have been nice to see a little more unresolved conflict towards his father who seemingly disappeared on him at an age where he was too young to fully understand, but these issues never get touched upon.
To distract us from the lack of emotional resonance between the characters are a couple of nice supporting roles; Michael Sheen makes an eccentric appearance as Castor, the owner of The Grid's hottest club and the young Jeff Bridges appears as CLU, the film's bad guy. As a way of showcasing a new technology and exploring what it can do TRON: Legacy was perhaps not the best vehicle for this 'de-aging' technology because it's not only the way the character looks but how the character reacts that's important and as for a bad guy that has to show anger and passion this is where the technology falls flat. It should have been more about the character rather than lingering shots of 'wow we made a walking, talking Jeff Bridges circa 1989' and I would have bought it if we weren't meant to believe that CLU is essentially a carbon copy of Flynn and therefore look just as human as the real Flynn, but it just doesn't, a nice attempt but poorly executed.
Quorra (Olivia Wilde; House, The O.C.) is the love interest/sibling figure to Sam and she looks just as good as any of the other people in The Grid and serves more as a plot device rather than a character and reminded me more than a little of Milla Jovovich in The Fifth Element but to her credit she does it nicely with the kind of Disney innocence that goes over so well.
However at the end of the day TRON: Legacy misses so much where it could have achieved so much more, it listened to the fans when they said they wanted a new TRON movie but ignored them in as far as the story, tone and script was concerned. The Grid is a much darker place now and if only Disney had recaptured some of the magic of the original and gone for substance over style then there may still be some power in the franchise.
by Joel Fisher
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