2010 Movies: #26

#26 Tron: Legacy 

My conversations leading up to this film usually went kind of like this:
Homie A: "Dude, I'm soo fired up for the new Tron. You remember in the first one, where-"
Me: "Actually...I've never seen the original Tron."
Homie B: "you've never seen Tron? What the hell is wrong with you?"
Homie A: "Seriously...what kind of sheltered, pathetic childhood did you have? I suppose now you're going to tell me you never owned a G.I. Joe, much less stopped Cobra from infiltrating the Pyramid of Darkness."
Me: "I...er...uhhh.."
Homie B: "Nooooooo!"

Yes, Tron was one of the staple 80s upbringing things I missed out on. I had ninja turtles, thundercats and he-man action figures, but no Joes. I saw Goonies and the Princess Bride umpteen times but never Tron. Some people take umbrage to that sort of thing.

So having no basis for comparison, I thought Tron:Legacy was, at the very least, visually and sonically fantastic. We jump 25 years or so from original Tron times to the present. Sam (Garret Hedlund) moves in with his grandparents after his video-arcade mogul pops (Jeff Bridges) goes missing. Fast-forward to a little while later; Sam is now a leather-jacket rocking teen with a motorcycle and a piece of his father's company. When douchebaggery begins being implemented by the higher-ups, Sam and his fathers partner launch a plan to taken a portion of the software public. Then he goes on the run, ending up in his father's old arcade. A couple of quarters pumped into Tron leads to an office opening up that just so happens to portal him inside the video game, where he will take a shot at tracking down/bringing home his estranged father.

The script is of course Disney-cheesy as is the acting (even though his dudeness brings his inner Lebowski to alternate universe land), but it's still a blast to watch. The action scenes are off the hook, particularly the one where Sam fights the video game drones.

The video game mainframe is full of neon suits and lit-up neon discs and Olivia Wilde and loud techno provided by our favorite robot dj techno duo Daft Punk--a highlight being the single, "Derezzed". The length and the crap dialogue are certainly pitfalls, but let's be honest-you weren't there for the writing. I was impressed at how well the movie was able to computerize a young Jeff Bridges, shown at the beginning as a much younger father and throughout as the nemesis of the mainframe. I suppose I should have expected impressive computerization-it's a dang movie about computers!

***
I'm halfway there! Now comes the back end of the Top 50-get excited...