Review of TRON: Legacy (2010) by Halfwelshman — 13 Apr 2012

TRON: Legacy may be visually spectacular, but it's an incredibly flawed film, even for a shamelessly profit-driven Disney Blockbuster. It begins well enough, with satisfying links to the original film, and the first hour or so is pretty entertaining and energetic storytelling.

Garrett Hedlund, while not the most talented actor or compelling protagonist in film history, has the right confidence and swagger about him to convincingly portray Jeff Bridges' son. Bruce Boxleitner is decent in his reprisal of the role of Alan Bradley/Tron, but his role this time round is a little limited.

Michael Sheen unquestionably steals the show as the flamboyant Bowie-esque nightclub owner Castor. Olivia Wilde is pretty awful as Quorra, and her character is nonsensical, even for a film about someone being transformed into computer code, but the real disappointment is Jeff Bridges who looks bored as the old Flynn and downright terrifying as the de-aged Flynn/CLU.

The script is also dire, and the story becomes offensively dumb from about an hour in. Thank goodness for the fantastically catchy electronic soundtrack provided by Daft Punk - it almost makes up for the inconsistency of the rest of the film.

..almost. TRON: Legacy has fantastic visuals and competent action, and a standout performance from Michael Sheen, but it's been a while since I've seen another film that's so moronic and packed with bad ideas.

And I'm sure the filmmakers got Cillian Murphy in for a two minute sequence for some reason...but I sure as heck don't know what that reason was.