Even though I’m not the least bit interested in the visual style, the story of Chronicle nudged me into the theater.  The film opens with high school teen Andrew Detmer (Dane DeHaan), a loner outcast locked in his bedroom with his video camera while his drunken father pounds on the door with thunderous shouts at the boy.  His father is a laid off firefighter.  His mother is bed-ridden and dying from a serious medical condition.  If Andrew has anyone on his side, it’s his cousin, Matt (Alex Russell), who invites him to a party one night, despite serious objections to Andrew toting his video camera around.

Andrew has decided he wants to document his daily life on film, which is hard to imagine considering his abusive treatment at home and uninteresting social life at school.  Apparently it gives him a time-occupying outlet.  At the rave party, Matt and his friend Steve (Michael B. Jordan) find Andrew and request he follow them into the woods to check out a sizable hole in the ground.  Andrew’s light on his camera could help them out.  With their ears pressed to the ground, the trio hear a bass-thumping rumble coming from the hole, so they naturally decide to make a descent inside to discover what’s lurking underneath.  As they wander their way down, they stumble upon… well, something—not of this world.  It appears large, glowing, crystallized, with an alien entity inside.  The video feed flickers.  Something is happening to the boys and their noses begin to bleed heavily.

The next we see of them, their not fully aware of how they got out of the ground.  Oh, and they have telekinetic powers.  The guys starting tossing baseballs around with their minds and constructing Lego buildings.  Their abilities increase as they ‘stretch the muscle’ of their power, pulling pranks on helpless shoppers, moving parked cars across parking lots, and delivering the ultimate magic act at their school talent show.  Once the boys learn they can fly, they realize their level of invincibility. Andrew captures it all on film, but his home life and awkward social interactions begin to distance him from his new-found friends.  His tragedy unfolds over a series of events that push him further and further into darkness and alienation.

In retrospect, Chronicle could be described as simply another X-Men story.  Boys gets powers.  They use them.  One of the boys turns to the dark side.  This creates a divide.  Who will protect humanity?  Is humanity worth protecting when you’ve become a higher species, or an ‘apex predator’ as the film calls it?  Max Landis penned the script, and he admirably combines realistic high school behavior with the deeper elements that give Chronicle the authenticity (despite some glaring holes) it needs to capture our attention over a brisk 80 minutes.  The story is never as deep as it think it is, but I’m guessing that’s why the filmmakers opted for the documented footage angle.  The audience doesn’t expect layers of depth if they are witnessing the events ‘as they really occurred’.

I personally would have enjoyed the film more had the filmmakers chosen to go deeper.  This sci-fi thriller is all surface details, comical interactions, and bloated action sequences.  Don’t get me wrong—it works.  But I can’t help thinking there is a larger, grander, better movie hidden inside this ambitious little cheapie that makes the most of its budget and young talent.  Chronicle is a fun little ride featuring unrealized potential.  Young viewers will eat it up.  And while the film may be satisfactory, I wanted more.

***½~ (3.5/5)

Following the Night at the Museum flicks, Shawn Levy directs another special-effects filled fantasy featuring a lacking father trying to rebuild a relationship with his young son.  Shedding his claws for joysticks, Hugh Jackman enters as Charlie, a down-on-his-luck former boxer looking to settle major financial debts with the wrong people by purchasing fighting bots and betting on them in low-key fights.  Complicating his lifestyle on the road is his 11-year-old son Max (Dakota Goyo).  After the sudden death of Max’s mother, Charlie has to sign over parental rights to the boy’s wealthy aunt and uncle.  Without caring anything for the boy, Charlie agrees to giving up custody for $50,000 in a secret deal with Max’s uncle.  The catch: Charlie has to agree to look after Max for the summer while his guardians are out of the country.  The stubborn father and willful son have no interest in each other, and yet have their love for boxing in common.

Charlie invests his money in a famous Japanese boxing bot that ends up getting demolished in its first fight.  Looking in junkyards for scrap parts, Max discovers an outdated sparring robot named Atom.  Max gives Atom a thorough tune-up and discovers that it has a rare shadowing feature that allows the robot to mimic his operator’s movements.  This gives Atom the ability to be trained by both Max and Charlie and store real boxing maneuvers and moves.  The father-son duo start earning quick cash as Atom proves to be a worthy opponent in the ring, scoring several unlikely wins that leads to a title shot against the undefeated world champion robot.  Max bonds with Atom, and ultimately and more importantly with his father.  Thus Charlie ends up with a comeback shot with Max while their bot fights for the title.

Levy throws Rocky, Over the Top, Transformers, and a giant bottle of syrup into the blender to deliver a film built entirely on formula and familiar beats.  I was surprised I didn’t find the film’s recipe on the back of my ticket stub.  The characters laugh on cue, cry on queue, and the movie practically invites audiences to stand up and cheer by the end credits.  But you know what?  I didn’t care.  Both Jackman and Goyo create a believable relationship onscreen making Real Steel the perfect movie for fathers and young sons, complete with impressive visual effects that have hulking metal clamoring for our entertainment.  Levy’s effects team surpasses the destructive mayhem of Michael Bay’s Transformers as far as convincing robots go.  The bots of Real Steel have weight to them.  They’re affected by gravity.  I was thoroughly impressed and believed these boxing matches even if I didn’t believe in them.  This is fantasy, and in a world of virtual gaming, any boys under 12 years of age will be loving Real Steel to the last bolt.  And I bet their fathers might have just as much fun.

***~~ (3/5)

James Franco plays Will Rodman, a geneticist on the verge of a medical breakthrough.  He has designed a serum that has the potential to cure Alzheimer’s disease.  This venture has impassioned him as he watches his father (John Lithgow) fall victim to the illness.  After testing on apes, the research proves that the cure is functional and ready for human trials.  Unfortunately, a laboratory accident prevents potential investors of the drug from approving it.  Will’s project faces termination, as do the apes.  Unable to kill a newborn chimp, Will takes in little Caesar only to see that the drug has been genetically passed on from the chimp’s mother.  Will documents Caesar’s increased brain activity and motor functions over the course of several years.

Caesar has extraordinary capabilities.  He can write, read, use sign language, reason, and protect.  It doesn’t take long for him to realize that outside of Will’s home, the rest of society sees him as a dangerous pet—unequal to that of a human.  He feels the isolation of being an outcast and is ultimately taken by the state to a facility for apes after a violent accident.  Caesar is abused and mistreated, as are the other apes in confinement.  He sees only one solution to free his companions and stop the maltreatment of his kind.

If you thought Rise would be a noisy spectacle without a brain in its head, let me surprise you—this could be the thinking man’s movie of the season.  Directed by Rupert Wyatt, the film restores this franchise and provides an ample amount of emotion and heart to the blockbuster.  Forget about the humans onscreen—this movie is all about Caesar, an impressive digital creation of motion capture technology played by Andy Serkis of Lord of the Rings fame.  Serkis gives Caesar a real performance, providing the apes a reason to become angry, impassioned, willed, and ultimately the dominant species of the planet.  Wyatt succeeds in combining a rock solid story with heartfelt drama and impressive special effects that will likely contend as the year’s best.

The film also draws up important questions about the limits of science and where we draw the line in the quest to advance medicine.  Tim Burton’s 2001 Planet of the Apes only flirted with the idea of one species being a slave to another as a matter of moral significance.  Rise dives in head-first and has the audience weigh out the pros and the cons.  Of course the film leads up to a massive ape revolution that has been showcased in the advertisements, but the writers and Wyatt make more out of this golden opportunity than a stage of destruction—they’ve given us a story of an ape fighting for his place in this world.  This left me wondering if there could be a more human film this season than Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

****½ (4.5/5)

The Green Lantern is a much maligned superhero. People are quick to dismiss him because *snort!* “His weakness is yellow! How pathetic is that?” The thing you have to remember is that Green Lantern mythology is not meant to be taken at all literally. While many superhero stories fit pretty well into the science fiction category, Green Lantern is thoroughly fantasy; it seeks to make sense only in a metaphorical or symbolic way. And while the events on screen are impossible to take seriously, they still capture the universal human experience. A good example is the GL-centrered espisode of Justice League “Despero,” which takes place on another planet, but spells out the very earthly themes of  seduction by power and the spirit to resist oppression. It’s the same with this movie. Green
is the color of will. Yellow is the color of fear. As Corps General Sinestro (Mark Strong) explains, “it is fear that stops will; stops you from acting.” That’s why yellow can stop green.

This film does a really good job of bringing Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) and company to the big screen. The origin story is, of course, the necessary evil of every super hero film, and like many films this one has been criticized for being light on action. There’s some truth to that, but, to be honest, I really didn’t notice. Writer Greg Berlanti draws the audience into the story so well, and the cast (especially Reynolds) fills out their roles so well, that mind-blowing action isn’t really necessary.

One interesting development: for obvious reasons, a few years ago, DC began to think that GL creating tanks and tigers from his ring to chase the bad guys was a bit … cartoonish, and so Justice League
limited his power to creating energy shields, lasers and the like. In Green Lantern, the cartoonishness is back, with Hal whipping out gatling guns and roadsters at every turn. But the biggest surprise of all is probably that they make it work pretty well. The story centers around the Corps’ battle with an entity known as Parallax (oddly named after Hal’s eventual super-villain identity from the comics) and Hal’s struggle to be accepted by the Corps. It also has a few goodies, such as a nod to Sinestro’s inevitable slide into super-villiandom, and one absolutely priceless moment that backhands the secret identity complexes of superheroes everywhere.

So how does Green Lantern stack up? It doesn’t have the gritty reality of The Dark Knight, the heart-warming inspiration of Iron Man, or the powerful iconography of Superman Returns. But it’s still a solid adaptation of an under-rated franchise that’s worth checking out.  Incidently, so is the animated Green Lantern: First Flight. Green Lantern is clearly better than:

Electra

The Fantastic Four

The Fantastic Four 2

The Punisher

Spiderman 2

Hulk.

And probably at least as good as:

Ghostrider

Daredevil

Spiderman 3

X2: X-Men United

Iron Man 2

Wolverine

So stop knocking it. If nothing else, the color green has been proven to reduce stress, and this movie has it in spades.

***~~ (3/5)

Yes, I flat out loved this undeniably fresh tribute to the glory days of cinema.  Producer Steven Spielberg and Director J.J. Abrams (Star Trek) have ditched mayhem-induced F/X filmmaking and have instead decided to tread sacred waters: “storytelling” that utilizes F/X-filled mayhem at no expense to character development.  This is a pure bred science-fiction spectacle, and it’s impossible not to at least sink your teeth into the wonderful nostalgia.

Luckily Super 8 is more than just a plate of nostalgic reflection on old school sci-fi.  Abrams has unleashed a pet project of his centering on a group of elementary youngsters in 1979 Lillian, Ohio.  Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney) is trying to make a movie with his pals—a zombie outbreak short film they would like to enter into a local competition.  The boys find their sole actress and illegal chauffeur in Alice Dainard (Elle Fanning).  Joel is instantly taken with her.  Shooting the picture at a train station in the evening, the kids become engulfed in something far more terrifying than a phony zombie apocalypse.  They are caught in the middle of a disastrous train crash instigated by a mad truck driver who turns out to be the students’ science teacher.

The kids are shocked, scared, and chased off the scene by military troops.  Joel has seen more than he fully realizes.  Something escaped the rubble… something that perhaps should not have escaped.  Joel and his cohorts know a great mystery and conspiracy is taking over their small town, but how will they find out what it is, and more importantly, who will believe them?

A handful of people begin to disappear.  Pets are fleeing to the next county.  The military start to dig about the town.  Several pieces of machinery seem to get snatched away.  Electricity fades in and out.  Joel’s father Deputy Jackson Lamb takes on the burden of watching over Lillian as the sheriff has gone missing.  Little time passes before Jackson becomes as cautious and curious as his son about the sinister activity and conspiracy overtaking his home.

Abrams fills each frame with such a fond love and affection for the wonder of movies.  Super 8 overflows with memorable scenes and lovable characters that make the mystery and suspense of the plot all the more interesting.  Never once did I feel the film’s urgency to cut to action and special effects in case things became too plodding.  The reality is that Super 8 is edited to near-perfection.  The scenes have been constructed tightly and crisply.  The tension abounds and the scares thrill.  The dialogue never seeks to simply advance the plot, but instead works to penetrate and reveal the characters.  A ready supply of humor and authenticity shines through every frame as each of the young actors carry the movie.

And what about these young actors?  They would give most A-list stars a run for their money, particularly Elle Fanning and Joel Courtney.  These two happen to be dynamite actors—convincing, convicting, believable, and consistently on their game.  The film offered me a sweet little reminder that children can be just as brilliant of actors when they are the right actors under the proper direction rather than just cute faces.

As a science-fiction mystery, the film couldn’t be more entertaining.  If one is quick to dismiss this as a high-profile director’s attempt to simply replicate an idol’s bread-and-butter style of filmmaking, then so what?  Everyone sits around and complains: “They just don’t make them like they used to.”  Abrams has stepped up where other directors have shied away and delivered a movie that audiences can get wrapped up in and fall in love with.  Sure, Super 8 has obvious similarities to E.T. and several other films, but I can’t fault Abrams for wanting to rekindle a dying flame.  With this feature he has brought a heavy dose of spirit and magic back to cinema without beating audiences over the head with repetitive bass-booming action and special effects.  He kindly reminds us that is never what it’s been about.  Cinema has always been about telling good stories and utilizing the best possible resources at hand to do so.  Abrams effectively demonstrates that the soul is not lost from a megawatt blockbuster, at least not while he’s making movies.  Rather than a monster showcase giving up all details (a monster that is slowly but surely revealed), Spielberg and Abrams have us consider looking up at the sky in wonder as they do the same.  If you are going to see one movie this season, make it Super 8.

***** (5/5)

I was a fan of the original X-men trilogy, although X3 seemed to wilt a little without the Singer touch. But Singer returns with a writing credit and a little production input, to bring us a revitalization to the X-men franchise. Singer gave appropriate nods to his original X-men series (including two cameos, one of which is worth the ticket purchase alone – no spoilers though) to keep them valid and intertwined with the new film, but left room to explore brand new territory. By setting the film against the Cuban missile crisis, it gives the film a unique real-world connection while adding that science fiction, super-powered flair we all love in a good superhero movie. In addition to the real-world environment, we get a much deeper understanding of who these characters are beyond their powers. We see what drives them, what their flaws are, why they made the choices of which we saw the results in the previous three films. It is a well-rounded story with a lot of heart and a heck of a lot of action.

Little known X-men History: Charles and Erik loved playing hide and seek. Given that Charles was a mind-reader, Erik always lost.

(For those familiar with the series, you may skip this paragraph.) For those who may not be familiar with the concept, First Class focuses on the initial formation of the X-men, a group of people with genetic mutations which manifest themselves in the form of super-human abilities. The film is a prequel of sorts to the X-men trilogy which was released in the 2000s. It focuses on the two key players in the battle for human/mutant coexistence – Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr, a.k.a. Professor X and Magneto. Charles has the ability to read and control minds, Erik the ability to control magnetism.  Focusing on their backgrounds we see glimpses of Erik’s childhood as a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp, contrasted with Charles’ wealthy upbringing in America. Charles focuses his energies on studying genetics and mutations, Erik is hellbent on revenge. Eventually their paths come together, and under the supervision of the government, they locate and recruit a group of young mutants with diverse powers in order to form a team to defeat Sebastian Shaw, a man who is manipulating the U.S. and Russian governments in an effort to start WWIII for his own diabolical purposes.

Now that everyone is caught up to speed on the premise, how does the film stack up?

Sylar developed the super-human ability to jump over sharks on water skis after telekinetically lobotimizing the Fonz.

In a way, I feel like this is exactly what I needed after enduring Heroes for four uneventful seasons. I will sidestep briefly to explain my disappointment with Heroes. This show started with an interesting premise – regular people who develop super-human abilities. The problem is, barring a few brief episodes in chapter 1 and a sort of side plot in season 3, these people spent most of their time avoiding using their powers. While everyone at home is on the edge of their seats waiting to catch a few minutes worth of super-powered effects buried amongst tangled and unnecessarily elaborate plot arcs in each 45-minute episode, you could practically hear the producers saying “Oh no, effects like that will be too expensive to produce. Avoid them at all cost!” They also got tangled up in attempting to rework their concept to address what they viewed as “fan feedback”, and ultimately ended up ruining all the things which gave the show substance. Heroes effectively “jumped the shark” shortly into season 2 and never really recovered.

Now, back to X-men.

Although we see a somewhat reluctance in some of the mutants to use their abilities, ultimately we see an embracing of their purpose. In addition, we get a chance to see not only practical applications of their abilities, but also what happens when these powers are unleashed. There are several awe-inspiring scenes with Erik as a child, one of which is an almost shot-for-shot recreation of the concentration camp scene from the original film. This film did for X-men what Star Wars: The Force Unleashed did for the Force of the Star Wars universe – showed what real people would do if they had these abilities in these situations, and they definitely wouldn’t hold back.

"Hi, I'm Magneto. I'm a fictional character. Move on with your life and enjoy the movie."

The biggest critiques coming toward this film have to do with the consistency of the storyline with that of the comic history.  There are a few necessary deviations in age of characters or background stories in order to make a more concise story arc. The fan boys will be up in arms that every minute detail isn’t as it was in the original material. But the fact of the matter is this, just as with any lengthy series derived from a written text – Harry Potter (7 books), The Chronicles of Narnia (7 books), Lord of the Rings (technically 6 books) – some details must be skimmed, omitted, or adjusted in order to fit them into a 2-3 hour timeslot. Let’s face it the X-men story spans hundreds of comics over decades of writing, there’s no way you’re going to get every detail into a film. So if you’re going looking for 100% accuracy, prepare to nitpick your way out of enjoying the film.

My Six-Degrees of Kevin Bacon: I was an extra in Election with Matthew Broderick --> who was in The Producers with Nathan Lane --> who was in The Birdcage with Robin Williams --> who was in Bicentennial Man with Oliver Platt --> who was in X-men: First Class with Kevin Bacon. Booya.

The actors, did an excellent job embodying their respective parts. McAvoy and Fassbender, lend their interpretation on the characters artfully personified by Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan, and provide a fantastic bridge between the two portrayals. Jennifer Lawrence, recently nominated for an Oscar for her role in Winter’s Bone, gives a notable performance as Mystique, adding some much welcome character development behind the eye-candy that was Rebecca Romaine in the original films. And of course, this film adds a link in everyone’s “6-Degrees of Kevin Bacon”, who gave a delightful performance as the villain.

Overall, this film was an absolutely enjoyable experience at the movies, and I sincerely look forward to the inevitable sequel that will most likely ensue. I’ve heard it described as X-men meets one of the old-school James Bond films, and I can agree with that assessment. The key is – this film is a good movie that just happens to be about super heroes, which isn’t always the case with Marvel and DCs cinematic outings. It’s definitely worth the time and money to soak in the scale on the big screen.

****½ (4.5/5)

While North America is being sent into a tizzy trying to deal with the strange phenomenae, entire squadrons of missing World War II aircraft are discovered in the desert in mint condition.  It’s these strange events that cause French scientist Claude Lancombe to investigate the matter further, leading to the eventual discovery of a probably location for an alien landing site along with five distinct musical tones that might possibly lead to a method of communicating with the extra terrestrials.  Keep in mind there’s no gunfights, and no national monuments are singled out for destruction.  In many ways, Close Encounters of the Third Kind more accurately resembles a cerebral thriller or mystery like Inception or Vertigo rather than a traditional science fiction movie, but it’s these qualities that make it anything but traditional.  And yet, Spielberg keeps things engaging and interesting throughout, while building up to a climax that is as massive in scope as anything we might see in a multiplex today.

Roy Neary, searching for meaning in a pile of clay.

Just as E.T. was first and foremost a story about divorce that also happened to involve aliens from another planet, Close Encounters is a story about family that is struggling to stay together despite the father’s descent into madness.  Roy Neary is a good guy who is overcome with strange visions, and pushes his family away while they struggle to deal with changes they cannot hope to understand.  The focus is kept squarely on Neary’s quest for understanding, Jillian Guiler’s search for her son, and their refusal to accept anything other than concrete answers.  Strangely, there is little to be found in the way of redemption, as Neary makes some very unexpected choices near the end–choices that Spielberg himself has since admitted he would change if he were to make the movie today.  But these unconventional choices made by Neary lend an authentic quality to the movie that is fairly unique in modern cinema, and coupled with the stunningly realistic special effects that can easily hold their own against anything Hollywood has to offer today, catapult Close Encounters to the upper echelon of cinematic science fiction. This one is not to be missed by anyone who is a fan of the genre, or anyone who just likes good movies.

Rating:****½ (4.5/5)

I’m sad to report that Jonathan Liebsman’s stab at the alien invasion epic is an otherwise interesting (although one-note) piece of filmmaking.  Blending Black Hawk Down and War of the Worlds, Liebsman drops us into Ground Zero with a group of confused marines sent into the battleground of Los Angeles following a barely announced invasion circling the globe.  I call it Call of Duty: Worlds at War.  Aaron Eckhart, featuring a full face once again, leads his platoon of one-note soldiers into a combat zone that would have Michael Bay and Sylvester Stallone drowning in envy.  There’s a handful of characters here, but the film has precious little time for back story.  Minutes into this thing the audience is dodging shrapnel and ducking under the smoke clouds.  This is a combat film, through and through, filmed via handheld and edited to make your head spin.

So what’s the mission?  Honestly, there isn’t much of one.  The marines are choppered to the L.A. police station to rescue a group of civilians trapped inside.  From there on out, it’s moving from point A to point B avoiding deadly fire from the outer-space hostiles.  Never mind why the aliens are invading with violence.  We hear a few news clips claiming they are harvesting our planet for water.  Also never mind that their biological composition makes little to no sense.  Part machine, part creature of some sort, they look cheap and biologically improbable to function.  In a head-scratching scene, Eckhart’s character and a veterinarian dissect one of their captured enemies to figure out how to kill it.  To their surprise, the alien has a heart in its chest.  “Aim for the heart!” he cries.  It seemed to me the marines were blowing them in half from the get-go, but maybe that’s just me.  Don’t ask me about the aliens’ spacecrafts either.  From what I can tell, the filmmakers haven’t any more of a clue than I do.  The ships seem like C.G.I. whirlwinds of car parts that can disassemble into smaller aerial drone planes.  There’s no sensible design or calculations to these vehicles.  I’m guessing the artists behind them saw Transformers one too many times and decided to dumb down the concept there.

Battle: Los Angeles clearly left storytelling and imagination out of the greenlighting contract as well.  Cliches abound in the premise and reign supreme throughout.  We have a gruff leader in Eckhart, whose character battles his haunting past amidst the haunting present.  He’s retiring early on in the film after losing his entire unit of men during his last mission.  For his final day on the job, he is supposed to play second-in-command to another officer for a training simulation.  Turns out aliens invade and he’ll have to take on the greatest threat of his career.  Weird.  The plan to thwart the aliens involves taking out their system core that holds their entire power source.  Also original.  Even the minimal dialogue appears to be peeled away from other films.  At least the pyrotechnics are sound, and to be honest, that’s what the film is all about—getting in-your-face visceral.

For a quick action-fix, Battle: Los Angeles will in no way compare to a classic like Aliens (a far-superior clashing of alien creatures and marines—made 25 years ago…), but it will likely tide over young men who have no problem putting down their X-Box controllers to witness some more first-person shooter mayhem.  Complaints regarding the film playing like a kaboom-heavy videogame aren’t far from the truth.  Battle: Los Angeles isn’t striving for good sci-fi.  It’s striving for gritty target practice.  I actually dug the concept of a military action-thriller as the forefront of an alien invasion film.  Unfortunately, while all the technical aspects and extended action sequences of Battle: LA prevail, the aliens and plot do not.  I can shoot second-rate animated robot slugs at home.  For those needing a break from that sort of time-wasting, Jonathan Liebsman’s bone-crunching, ear-drum pounding, brain-thumping epic will do.  And you don’t even need a controller, unless you wait for it on DVD of course.
**~~~ (2/5)

I’ve been MIA for a bit, but as a newlywed, I’m sure you’ll forgive me for spending less time at my computer, and more time with my wife.

Speaking of spending time with my wife, we made it out to the theatre for the first time in a while to see the new film Tron Legacy. Now, once upon a time, I saw the original Tron, and I remember at the time thinking it was cool, and edgy, and all the effects were so ahead of their time. (which they were) But nowadays, Tron holds on to the hearts of the masses through the sheer willpower of nostalgia. It’s similar to how fans approached the Star Wars prequels. They loved the originals, so why wouldn’t it be 10 times better with new visual effects, right?

Quick summary – Sam Flynn, son of Kevin Flynn, a game designer from the 80s, is inactive CEO of Encom, a Microsoft-esque company his father started before his sudden disappearance. After 20 years of being out of his life, a friend of his father’s receives a page. Sam goes to the arcade his father used to run, discovers a hidden room and running workstation, and inadvertently inserts himself into “the Grid”, a digital world his father created. Once here he meets his father, discovers a plot by a program his father created called “CLU” and strikes out with his father to escape the Grid and stop CLU from carrying out his evil plan.

To quote Will Smith "I have got to get me one of these!"

Tron Legacy was, to be frank, a visual effects feast. Similar to how thrilled I was in Superman Returns to see Superman moving in a freeform fashion instead of laying on a bluescreen table and leaning left and right, it was thrilling to see light cycles and disc battles using today’s cutting-edge CGI technology. These scenes were the first to be presented to the fans over a year ago, and really, they’re probably the coolest elements to the film. Alas, they are also the shortest scenes of the film. I would say in the over 2-hour runtime, you see maybe 5 minutes of disc battles, and 8 minutes of light cycles. Oh, there are plenty of other CGI effects, including the entire world of the Grid, but those two sequences are what fans of the original came to see, and they deliver in a way only nostalgia-fueled reminiscing can fully enjoy.

Jeff's evil twin-brother - Faux Bridges

There is, of course, one other major CGI element, and that is the young version of Jeff Bridges. The makers of Tron Legacy decided that to make a 20-year younger Jeff Bridges, they’d use the same motion capture technology used to make Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen look younger for X3. Problem is, it looked creepy then, and it looked creepy now. Long ago, people at Pixar realized that trying to make CG people look 100% real was very off-putting to audiences. There are so many imperfections to human expression that to attempt to recreate it in a computer almost always resulted in an indescribably unnatural effect. So, Pixar steered clear and went with the more cartoony humans we know and love.

I do have to say that I’m okay with this concept when the technology is used to create CLU, the avatar version of Flynn, because he exists solely in a computer world, and could therefore look artificial. However, when they try to pass it off for the few real world scenes, it’s eerie, and discomforting to watch. I appreciate that they tried, and didn’t just use a lot of back shots and cleverly concealed faces, but maybe casting a younger actor to play Flynn in those few flashback scenes would have been a better bet. They also used this technique for Bruce Boxleitner to create the younger version of Tron, who makes a few appearances via flashback, but it was far less noticeable in these scenes.

Outside of the effects, this movie is fairly lackluster. The acting is passable, but never really reaches any sort of noteworthy performance. Perhaps the closest would be Olivia Wilde as Quorra, who has to have an almost child-like, artificiality to her, and she does this well. Martin Sheen takes a break from his overly dramatic roles to do a mean David Bowie impression as Castor, Beau Garrett gets her first notable role playing some spandex-clad eye candy as Gem.

The plot of the film is clearly aimed at fans of the original, relying on a lot of “wink wink” allusions to the first film in order to garner full enjoyment. It was predictable at times, and I found I had little emotional investment in the film, primarily because the characters lacked any emotional investment. After not seeing his father for the 20 most developmental years of his life, Sam and Kevin see each other and it’s merely a “haven’t seen you in a while *tear*… so, yeah, how about we get out of here?” moment. They circle the father-son relationship concept but never really delve too deeply into it. Kevin Flynn has the personality of a burned out druggie, ending most sentences with the colloquialism “man” to make sure the audience never forgets that he last left Earth in the 80s and was clearly a product of the 60s and 70s. Most of the other characters were artificial beings, so their lack of humanity is somewhat excusable.

You'd have to be "daft" to not enjoy this soundtrack!

The last note I have to make is in regards to the soundtrack, which is expertly executed by Daft Punk. Interestingly, this is the element of the film getting some of the most buzz. I can’t say that I’d want to listen to this Soundtrack much outside of the film, but as a part of the whole, it’s perfect. Plus their outfits are pretty much made to cameo in this film – which they do – so, bonus there.

Sort of a quick side note, we saw the film in 3D due to lack of other time options, and the film opened with a disclaimer saying many of the scenes are presented in 2D because that’s how they were intended. I applaud Disney for the bold choice, however some scenes, such as the light cycles and many of the scenes in the Grid offered some very cool 3D effects, but the shift between 2D and 3D scenes was occasionally jarring, and not always justified. I could buy using 2D for the real world, and 3D for the Grid, sort of ala Wizard of Oz and its use of color, but not all of the Grid was in 3D, and sometimes it was just shots of a character standing there that got the upconvert, which made for a very disorienting moment. I leave it to you to decide if 3D is worth the extra money for you or not.

To sum up, Tron Legacy is an exciting return visit to the world of Tron, with a much needed update to the visual effects. The story is relatively flat, but serves to move us from one visual sequence to the next, and the acting is what it is for the confines of the story. For those that haven’t seen the original Tron, there’s a convenient bit of exposition at the beginning to catch you up, so you won’t be lost. (My wife hadn’t seen the original and still enjoyed the film.) I would say I enjoyed seeing the film, and would recommend seeing it in the theatres for the spectacle, just don’t expect Oscar-worthy film-making (outside of the CGI effects).

***~~ (3/5)

Even though Tron is widely considered a classic among fanboys and became a landmark in its time for visuals, I could only appreciate it for its advances in its time—which look incredibly awful by today’s standards.  A movie like this could only be approached today by techy gurus obsessed with the 1980s or nostalgic adults remembering this flick of their youth.  I felt that due to a slight interest in the upcoming Tron: Legacy that I must visit the niche film that started it all.

As a fan of science-fiction I can see the impact that Tron must have had upon its release.  It combines digital effects with hand-drawn animation and utilizes live actors in the process against a computer-rendered backdrop.  Talk about ambition for its time.  Jeff Bridges plays Kevin Flynn, a top computer programmer and former video game designer for a software company.  His colleague, Ed Dillinger (David Warner), sabotages him by stealing all of his arcade game designs which promotes Ed to a Chief Executive position.  Soon enough Flynn is removed from the company.  Dillinger’s Master Control Program (or MCP), in charge of the company’s operations, continues to gain intelligence following Flynn’s departure, and eventually becomes self-aware determined to tap into access at the Pentagon (for world domination I presume).  The MCP keeps Dillinger in check by threatening to expose a file that proves Flynn is the real creator of the most popular arcade games on the market.  As MCP continues to gain more control and knowledge, the software company’s access to other human ‘users’ is cut off sending these programmers into a frenzy.  Employee Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner) has designed a program called Tron that will put a stop to foreign program violators which poses a threat to the MCP.  He teams up with co-worker Lora (Cindy Morgan) to recruit the genius Flynn into helping them sneak into the company and load Tron into the system.  Flynn sees this as is opportunity to track down the data file that will prove Dillinger’s scheme and earn him his job back.   All the while, an experimental laser has been developed at the company that can break a physical object down into a digital data stream.  Of course this laser comes into play when the MCP finds Flynn’s intrusion into the computer network.  The MCP decides it logical to stop Flynn from loading the Tron program by zapping him with the laser and turning him into a digital program that brings him into the world of the super computer.  As a program, Flynn must participate in a series of arcade games within the computer while trying to implement Tron (or more appropriately, a computer anti-virus in today’s terms) into the system and thus killing the MCP.

Whew… Still with me?  Tron as a film is further ‘out there’ than most, and is truly laughable by today’s standards.  But keep the year 1982 in your mind and also the fact that it’s a family-friendly Disney film, probably best remembered as a pioneer in experimental special effects.  The story is as odd and shallow, and yet as utterly complicated and confusing as it needs to be.  If you can accept Jeff Bridges being zapped by a laser that turns him into a computer program, then you’re half way to enjoying this movie.  I haven’t even mentioned that all computer programs within the computer are human counterparts that exist as replicants of their human users.  But I don’t want to confuse you even more.  The plot really has me scratching my head, and to contemplate it more and more I don’t think was the intent of the filmmakers.  Why would the MCP send Flynn, the ultimate threat to whole system, through a series of arcade battles and races when he could just have him terminated?  If the MCP really did gain so much knowledge and control, why don’t these human computer programmers so bent on uploading the Tron program decide to simply pull the power cord?   I have other questions that would spoil further developments of the plot, but I think ultimately I need to turn off my brain and recognize Tron simply as an early example of computer effects technology—even as laughable as it looks today.  I suppose my biggest question is how this type of film will translate to a wider audience today?  Upping the special effects will certainly help, but can today’s viewers really get into this?  We’ll have to wait and see when Tron: Legacy takes over soon enough.

So did I enjoy Tron or not?  I don’t know.  I really couldn’t see myself watching it again.  It has very little lasting qualities, and because I didn’t experience the film in the 80s, I can’t generate any sort of nostalgic attachment or appreciation for it.  Is it terrible?  No.  This is an ambitious project for its time, and in many ways was much ahead of its time.  I can appreciate it on that level, but find the film to hold little weight today.

**½~~ (2.5/5)