The Tron sequel was almost exactly as expected: a stylish visual feast with a few treats for fans of the original and a few slaps for the more militant ones, with a ropey plot, unlikeable characters and little of the original’s charm.
Let us analyse. Visually, the film was 87% less German Expressionist while an astonishing 722% more music video, but really that was the only direction it could realistically have taken. A film released in 2010 cannot look as quirky as Tron did and expect to do well. It had to look like a super-slick sci-fi blockbuster, and they hired a man known for his video game adverts for that very purpose. No longer is the Grid full of grey faces and strange washed-out colours, but is now all sleek black superhero costumes and glowing lines of power. What were pioneering 80s polygon blocks are now highly realistic flying machines and what were slightly limp but compelling sports games are now extravaganzas of acrobatics flips and lightcycle jumps. I wouldn’t have had it any other way, but the MTV aesthetic brings with it two problems: firstly, this is likely to look as dated in 2028 as Tron does now, being so very rooted in 2010’s idea of cool and elegance, and secondly, making everyone a beautiful model, while justified in the story, takes away much of what made the Game Grid work in the first game: programs could be fat, thin, ugly, pretty, dopey, smart…and most of all, funny. The idea of programs as people seems much more inventive when they don’t act like robots. And there weren’t even silly little flourishes like Bit to help things getting too pretentious.
Jeff Bridges, while the best thing about the cast, was 88% less Harrison Ford in this, and 67% more The Dude. This works fine, as of course Flynn has been through a lot since the first film, becoming a father and a powerful company head rather than a rebellious young programmer, and perhaps the film’s greatest visual triumph is making him looks so very young in the flashbacks and as CLU. And hey, a little bit of The Dude in a blockbuster is nothing to complain of!
The music, from Daft Punk, was 66% awesome, which was 100% disappointing. Perhaps the soundtrack that was rejected was more inventive, but I was actually quite saddened by how dull and vapid the music the duo provided was, especially when they even make an appearance. It had some nice beats, but also some annoying elements, and never had the pounding electronic brilliance I was hoping for. It was all just too obvious, too bland, too pedestrian. But perhaps I was hoping for Infected Mushroom or Fat of the Land-era Prodigy rather than chart dance music.
While the music video world was a good 76% more multi-cultural (although with 0% of the non-white cast members given a significant role), it was also 32% less British, with only Michael Sheen once again showing up to put on silly makeup, camp things up while looking faintly embarrassed, and still steal all of his scenes. He’s carved out a nice niche for himself when he’s one of those old but awesome British actors who show up for a few minutes in films.
Like 2010’s top-grossing film, Avatar, this is a triumph of style over substance. The real plot is jammed into the last act, and relies on us accepting various really rather difficult-to-swallow sci-fi elements: that sapient life can spontaneously develop in a digital world, that computer creations can be given flesh in the real world (yes, more of a leap than that humans can be digitised the other way) and that computer geniuses would design programs so complex they have minds of their own but do not have any failsafes. It’s also quite sad that Tron the character is pretty much a non-entity here, masked and brainwashed until the very end, where a change in colour hints at a sequel. It feels like all the good ideas were thrown into the first half-hour, after which there’s an overlong, plodding shoestring plot with characters on various modes of transportation, which was a wasted chance to make Flynn Jr actually appealing (which he never was, and it was baffling how they cast a cute kid as his younger self who looked nothing at all like him), and then a ham-fisted climax and resolution tacked on the end.
But the plot is secondary to the eye-candy, and that it did well. Stylish, chic and great in motion, I’m glad we went to the Empire, where the 3D glasses were a cut above the average and worked well for me.
Don’t go expecting cleverness. Don’t go expecting a worthy sequel. Go to switch off and gawp, and you’ll enjoy!
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