TRON LEGACY - REVIEW


Never a big fan of the original Tron myself, I can't say the prospect of a sequel to Disney's 80's creation got me jumping up and down with anticipation. Then I heard Daft Punk were doing the soundtrack. Then I saw the trailers...So I thought I'd give it a go.

Unfortunately what annoyed me about the first Tron remains but what worked in the original thankfully still works here, in a different way. Visually, Legacy looks amazing and, with a good script, could have potentially surpassed both Matrix sequels at least. This neon-lit world is definitely worth letting yourself be immersed into for a couple of hours. And needless to say Daft Punk's fantastic score adds a welcome 80's feel to the whole thing and pumps up the action scenes perfectly.

Bridges does well, even with the dodgier lines ("Bio-Digital jazz, man!"), Olivia Wilde is stunning and Michael Sheen effortlessly steals the show as a dodgy and delightfully camp club owner. Then there's Garrett Hedlund, Bridges' son in the film. An annoying brat with zero personality and zero charisma with lines like "you gotta be kiddin' me!", obviously the first thing anyone would say when entering the most awesome computer game world ever! Alas this Hayden Christensen clone sucks out a lot of the cool the film could have built up without him. Shame.

And THEN there's CGI Jeff Bridges... Not a good idea. Not at all. Kevin Flynn might have been over-ambitious when creating "The Grid" but these filmmakers were definitely overdoing it when they thought they could create a convincing HUMAN BEING with a couple of pixels! At no point does CGI Bridges look or feel real. Might as well have had a cartoon bunny instead.

What kills the Tron films for me is just how seriously it takes itself. This is a franchise which could be loads of fun yet I was bored watching the first one and I was mostly bored with this one too. Barring the amazing club scene and the first motorcycle Grid chase: yawn.

Overall, go see it and rock out to the Punk but don't expect too many fireworks or anything deeper than a great-looking, great-sounding screen saver.

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