Ever since it was first announced at 2008’s San Diego Comic-Con, Tron: Legacy has easily been one of Walt Disney Pictures’ biggest and most expansive projects, geared towards reviving and expanding a multimedia franchise that began with the 1982 original, Tron. With nearly thirty years between the original and sequel, Disney clearly had a big challenge in introducing an iconic sci-fi film to an entirely new generation, but the sad reality is that Tron wasn’t that popular when it was first released. To compensate for this potential shortcoming, Disney launched a shockingly aggressive and innovative marketing campaign (valued at nearly $100 million), not only releasing numerous fan-sites and redubbing the monorails at Walt Disney World Resort “TRONORAILS,” but also establishing a high-energy street festival at Disney’s California Adventure known as ElecTRONica, which included everything from dance shows to incandescent drinks. To reach the target audience of teenagers and young adults, the strongest selling point of the newest Tron film would clearly be the impressive special effects and 3D technology that could now be used to bring the digital world of the narrative to life. Though I myself had never seen the original Tron, I was open to some cool special effects; at the very least, with all the hype surrounding the sequel, Tron: Legacy had earned my time and attention.
In retrospect, Tron: Legacy was nowhere near as good as it could have been, but that is not to say that the end result wasn’t enjoyable; the biggest problem with this film is that its quality was too inconsistent. Because of the big time gap between the original of the sequel, a large portion of the two hour running time is spent explaining and setting up the world in which the film exists; so audiences will be treated to a fast-paced and visually stunning action sequence, only for the pacing of the movie to come to a dead stop so a character can explain what just happened. As far as acting goes, Jeff Bridges’ is surprisingly strong in playing two different characters, but Garret Hedlund was just not engaging or entertaining enough to stand-out as the central protagonist. Now, in terms of special effects, the digital world created for Tron: Legacy was visually stunning, helping the audience believe that they had truly entered a videogame, but as is common in so many “3D” films, the potential 3D technology was largely underused. Plain and simple, Tron: Legacy is a good (not great) sci-fi movie that is sure to please audiences young and old alike, but given the hype surrounding this project, audiences deserved much more.
For more information, please read the full review.
Overall Recommendation: Medium
