Tron: Legacy

Tron: Legacy raced to the top of the US Box Office this weekend, raking in $43 million, which is towards the low end of the expected range that it would take in.

[SPOILER ALERT: If you wish to discover the movie for yourself, do not read anymore beyond this]

I saw it over the weekend in IMAX 3D. After being bombarded with a lot of visual delights during the 2 years leading up to the movie's releases, one can imagine the high anticipation for this movie, at least, for me. So let's get this out of the way first and foremost. Visually, it was STUNNING. It was just exactly what I expected and more! There's more then enough thing to see that it will require 2nd and 3rd viewing to really sink in a lot of the visual aspects of this movie. The light cycle battle did not disappoint. It had an added dimension to it, both literally and figuratively! If you like Tron, you won't be disappointed at all with this.

But, as with the first Tron, the story line continues to be weak. The son-feeling-abandoned-by-father-that-did-not-return scenario is really getting tiring. One could also see Shia LaBeouf doing the same thing in the last Indiana Jones movie. And the "plan for invasion" scenes reminded me way too much of scenes from Star Wars Ep. 1-3, and not in a good way. Why do we need such speech? Couldn't the message be transmitted electronically? I'm sure they have Wi-fi at least, or 3G! It just made the whole scene seems generic. And at the end, why Tron suddenly switched sides at the very last minute and at just the right time was extremely flimsy (it was never explained how he survived in the first place after CLU decided to take over). Why he suddenly realized that he must serve the "user" at that point is a mystery.

But would I recommend this movie? Damn right I would. It is still a fun movie, and very much in the spirit of the first. But I think I come out of the Pixar school, because I now tend to expect a movie with a story that tugs at me, even when the visual aspect of the movie is utterly dazzling (I had the same problem with "Avatar"). The story would have been more interesting had they thrown in an unexpected twist, especially with CLU, who we all already pegged to be the "bad guy" (bad code?) early in the movie.

Zz.