Bryan's Movie Review: TRON: LEGACY IMAX 3D

I decided to give the Walt Disney sequel the full treatment and went to the IMAX 3D screening. The movie is visually stunning in many areas but, unfortunately, there are not many bright spots for this reviewer after that.

After a fairly quick set-up in the “real world” we are taken to The Grid. Trying to take it all in on IMAX was quite fun. The images did tend to be a little fuzzy on the edges of the screen. The set pieces and vehicles were definitely the highlight for me. This movie was not really designed for 3D as it did little to add to the experience. I was in a fairly full house and the only oohs and ahhs I heard were for the trailers and IMAX logo before the movie got underway.

Problem is, once you’ve seen each new location there is little else to hold your interest. Most of the acting and storyline are fairly mundane. You know what is going to happen on-screen well before any character does. To be engrossed into a sci-fi/fantasy movie, you need that ‘suspension of disbelief’. I routinely found myself asking questions of how things could happen in this world? Why would the characters attempt to rescue something when their end game would clearly resolve the matter regardless?

I will not give anything away but TRON: Legacy is essentially a quest movie. It tries to present characters that are multi-faceted but don’t quite make it. The last half is a mashing of Christian and Nazism tones guided by references that were done much better from where they were taken, namely Star Wars and The Matrix.

Olivia Wilde does a pleasant job as Quorra, who has a thirst for knowledge and is fiercely protective of Kevin Flynn. Jeff Bridges’ Flynn has grown into very Zen like channeling of The Dude. He has a few funny lines but comedic relief is not what this character should be. Garrett Hedlund as Sam Flynn is fairly wooden throughout and I could not bring myself to rooting for him.

Michael Sheen as Castor was appropriately over the top and seemed a modern telling of the Master of Ceremonies from Cabaret. The character Tron is barely used throughout other than as a reference point. That leaves us with Clu, a digitized version of Jeff Bridges. This could have been something special but it did not further any technology used today. At first the digital avatar looks stunning and then, that ‘suspension of disbelief’ is gone every time the character speaks.

All in all, most of today’s video games have close to similar visuals, equal acting and much better storylines. I heard this earlier today so I will not take credit for it. Disney should have taken a page out of Pixar's playbook: story first, visuals second.