Although Tron: Legacy has some great special effects, it is not as good or as groundbreaking as the original Tron. Tron: Legacy definitely has its good moments and bad moments. Jeff Bridges, who I like as an actor, gave a decent performance but had some really corny “hippie” lines throughout the movie. I suppose that fits in with the zen-like character he has become, but it still comes off as corny. Special effects did a good job digitizing Bridges to give him a younger face, but it is still pretty obvious that it is digital and not his real face. Other special effects and certain parts of the story I did enjoy, but there were definitely some flaws there.
The story begins explaining Flynn’s (Bridges) disappearance shortly after the original Tron movie takes place. His son is now in his 20s and is rebellious since his Dad disappeared. He doesn’t like the what has happened to his Dad’s company either and has taken to pulling a yearly prank on the company. Cillian Murphy’s character now runs Flynn’s company. I was disappointed that he was only in the movie for about 5 minutes. I also thought it was kind of funny that Murphy would take such a small role in the movie. Anyway, Alan (Tron’s “User”), who still holds a prominent position in the company, tells Sam (Flynn’s son) that he somehow received a page from his Dad and urges him to check out the source, which is Flynn’s old abandoned arcade. At the arcade, Sam unexpectedly gets transported to the computer world just like his father did in the first Tron. Then the fun begins.
The movie reviews for Tron: Legacy were definitely mixed. Ebert gave it 3 out of 4 stars and said, “the artificial world is wonderfully well-rendered” and the movie provides “visual excitement.” However, he calls the plot a “catastrophe.” Four star blog also gave it a 3 out of 4 and calls it a “blast.” They also praise Jeff Bridges performance. Reelviews was less complimentary as they called it “superficial eye candy” and also said “they had 28 years and this is the best they could come up with?” Imdb.com users currently rate the movie at 7.0 out of 10. Netflix users give it a 3.8 out of 5 stars while Blockbuster users give it a 3.5 out of 5.
While I didn’t think the plot was quite a “catastrophe” I definitely thought it was just average. I can see how some people wouldn’t like this movie, but being a sci-fi movie fan I thought that, overall, Tron:Legacy was worth watching and was a fun movie, despite all its flaws.
