TRON: Legacy

TRON: LEGACY (Blu-ray)
Walt Disney Home Entertainment 

Release date: April 18th 2011
Certificate (UK): PG
Running time: 125 mins

Director: Joseph Kosinski

Cast: Jeff Bridges, Garrett Hedlund, Olivia Wilde, Michael Sheen

Building New Worlds: TRON: Legacy
Daft Punk: Scoring TRON: Legacy

After 28 years, TRON proves it’s never too late for a sequel.

The follow-up to the 1982 movie is laden with special effects and boasts a soundtrack by Daft Punk, but despite its audio/visual allure, it’s story fails to remain relevant, even by today’s standards where the motto seems to be “anything goes”.

Jeff Bridges reprises his role as video-game developer Kevin Flynn, missing since 1989. His son, Sam (Garrett Hedlund), still baffled by the disappearance, visits his former workplace, tracking a strange signal coming from an old pager and inadvertently ends up in TRON.

Once there, he faces a series of deadly games and opponents but  masters the lightcycle and discus. He’s approached by a figure he first believes to be his long lost father, but it turns out to be CLU (a CGI version of a younger Jeff Bridges).

The inevitable real reunion takes place later on, but what should have been a high point in the film on an emotional level, doesn’t quite deliver.

This can be said for the film as a whole. While Flynn talks about creating a digital frontier that would “reshape the human condition”, what we’re instead treated to is an overtly simplistic story, which drags heavily at times, of a father and son attempting to escape from TRON as CLU moves in with his army.

Plot, structure and character development all take the back seat and even the fleeting appearance by Cillian Murphy goes almost unnoticed.

The most memorable character, Castor (Michael Sheen), the flamboyant program who runs the End of Line Club, steals the show, and I was hoping his screen time would have been much more substantial, along with Murphy’s. As an antagonist to Sam’s protagonist, he would have served far better than CLU, who hasn’t quite gotten the hang of how his facial expressions work. Sheen’s performance oozes camp and glam and he comes across like a David Bowie/Nick Rhodes neon hybrid, adding much colour and depth to an otherwise flat and dull landscape of blues and oranges.

TRON’s music also gives the film an advantage. Daft Punk, whose art form and style were heavily influenced by the original movie, began working on the score early during the film’s production.

It blends orchestral, electronic and granular elements seamlessly with the overall sound design of the film.

While there’s no denying that TRON: Legacy is visually stunning, it can’t hide the fact that its story is wasted on trivial matters when it has much grander things to see about, such as reshaping the human condition.

Patrick Samuel

The founder of Static Mass Emporium and one of its Editors in Chief is an emerging artist with a philosophy degree, working primarily with pastels and graphite pencils, but he also enjoys experimenting with water colours, acrylics, glass and oil paints.

Being on the autistic spectrum with Asperger’s Syndrome, he is stimulated by bold, contrasting colours, intricate details, multiple textures, and varying shades of light and dark. Patrick's work extends to sound and video, and when not drawing or painting, he can be found working on projects he shares online with his followers.

Patrick returned to drawing and painting after a prolonged break in December 2016 as part of his daily art therapy, and is now making the transition to being a full-time artist. As a spokesperson for autism awareness, he also gives talks and presentations on the benefits of creative therapy.

Static Mass is where he lives his passion for film and writing about it. A fan of film classics, documentaries and science fiction, Patrick prefers films with an impeccable way of storytelling that reflect on the human condition.

Patrick Samuel ¦ Asperger Artist

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