TRON: Legacy ... A Clockwork Review

(Spoiler Alert)

I am writing this late at night having just returned from a midnight screening of TRON: Legacy. I was really stressed about this movie, how would it mesh into the much loved original (at least by me and a few friends) and would it live up to its hype or just be another in a long line of films I have waited for that have sorely disappointed me... The Short answer... I FREAKING LOVED THIS MOVIE.

I feel before I get into it I have to level set, amongst my friends I am not known as a hard movie pallet to please. I once said I liked ( just Liked) the movie “The Spirit” and ever since then I have been the Mental deficient responsible for all of hollywoods missteps and quite possibly responsible for the Holocaust. That said, Dave S ( Long time friend, best man and Godfather) sat through T:L like he was in a dentist chair and gave a one line summation of the movie as “When Hippy Jeff Bridges Showed up the movie went to Shit”, so my love of this movie will probably lead to me being treated as a special needs child.

But Love it I did...

Little things like the figure of the “Black hole” robot on young Sam Flynn’s shelf and his father retelling the story of the original Tron film, to the spectacular special effects grabbed me and sucked me in. Before seeing the film I had spoken with Tron super fan Amocay and I had talked about how it was odd that they called the movie “Tron: Legacy” since Tron was the name of the program that Bruce Boxleitner created in the original movie not Flynn (I know, i know...”geek much?)... but come to find out it was a entirely fitting name and led to a fantastic redemption scene towards the end of the film. The story its self, while not Shakespeare, I thought was solid. I could tell that the Younger Kevin Flynn and CLU were CGI but it was still impressive. The new Light Cycles and various other vehicles were spectacular... lots of Geek Eye Candy.

I Liked the beginning of the movie, where Sam interferes with a ENCOM board meeting and this led to one let down, they didnt go back to it at the end ( Though they did mention it to be fair), After all they even went as far as to put Dilenger’s son on the board... I wanted a little more.

The fight scenes were spectacular, the De-rezzing allot more brutal. The Violence (except for a few drops of blood) is probably the reason why the movie got a PG, I was impressed by its lack of bad language. I would even consider taking my Son Kevin to see this movie.

I felt that Jeff Bridges brought allot of the same mannerism from the first movie into the character of of the older Flynn. Garret Hedlund was enjoyable as Sam and had a Good screen presence. Olivia Wilde and Beau Garrett were... shall we say “extremely pleasant to look at on the screen” and will probably be firmly planted on the pantheon of Sci-Fi babes for years to come.

Though I will probably have to face years of mocking from my friends for saying so, I was not at all disappointed by this movie and enjoyed it, loved it. I can’t wait to see it again with my son to see what he thinks.

and a Clockwinder note: Though I love my friends dearly, i was’nt concerned what they thought of the movie... all except one, Amocay, in someways the original Tron is his Star Wars, so I was Delighted to get a text from him at 2:30 AM saying how much he loved the film “He liked it better then “Cats””. :o)