I have watched the original Tron movie a few times over the years but I don’t believe I ever watched it all the way from the start to end, although I’ve seen it all collectively. From the moment I heard they were making a sequal I knew I had to see it. Being a techy myself this kind of film just speaks to me. I had unfortunately heard a number of bad/mediocre reviews from online and friends so I was sort of set up to think I wouldn’t like this film. I did a little research before seeing it to check if it was one that would be worth seeing in 3D. I discovered that the real world portions were shot normally and anything else in the digital “Tron” world was shot in true 3D. So luckily there was no post-conversion garbage like most “3D” movies are.
So on to my true feelings about the film. I LIKED IT! The effects were great, they truly showed off how 3D should look. The acting may have left you wanting, but while watching it you have to keep in mind that this is a sequal to a movie made only two months before I was born. Saying that also remember that because the majority of the film doesn’t take place in the real world it has this feeling of a comic book type movie with an extreme good vs evil storyline. Those types of movies are meant to feel corny and have one liners. For me the whole time I was thinking this film is just a futuristic type of story like ‘A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.’ The hero is basically transported from his world/time to a totally different place. This type of story has been done time and time again in books and movies and rarely gets old.
After learning from some past movies about how to tell a story and how not to tell a story, I remind myself often during action films like this to see if they truly kept the best action scene for the end of the movie. I feel they did this well because towards the end they took a new twist to what made the first Tron so memorable. They took the light-cycles to a new level by making light-planes that also do the whole light trailing behind you as you drive/fly. This made for some very cool air fights at the end. Overall I enjoyed the film, I would see it again, but I would recommend seeing this in theater while you can because it is amazing. It’s not as crazy or as ground breaking as something like Avatar, but at least it wasn’t completely predictable like Avatar was. I can’t wait for it to come out on disc and getting a Tron/Tron:Legacy movie combo pack all on Blu-ray.
Charles Cook Designs 