Tron: Legacy (2010) is an underappreciated movie from Disney. This sequel to the 80's hit uses stimulating imagery to drive its fantastic production design and narrative. Read here below to see if it's for you! No spoilers.
The critic consensus on Rotten Tomatoes answers my question immediately about why the movie received a mediocre score of 51%. "Tron Legacy boasts dazzling visuals, but its human characters and story get lost amidst its state-of-the-art production design." Here is my issue. The middle portion of that quote is a bunch of malarkey. There's nothing wrong with the story. Let me explain the concept below.
STORY: Sam Flynn lost his father, a famous virtual world designer, at a young age. Sam searches for him, and he ends up inside of his father's latest world creation. He must battle the rogue program Clu and help rescue his father and newly acquainted Quorra. Many obstacles will stand in his way.
As you can see, there's nothing amiss with the plotline, and the filmmakers carry it out well. The pacing is a little off at first but when Sam reaches the universe, I have no complaints.
Also, the critics critiqued the human characters. First, there aren't many of these characters. Really it's just Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) and Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) for the majority of the movie. You can tell Hedlund didn't have much experience initially in the movie. However, the actor quickly adapted the unique filming process. I'm still wondering what they didn't enjoy about Jeff Bridges' performance. I honestly can't place where he supposedly didn't care about the role.
In the film, there's an eccentric character portrayed by Michael Sheen. He's the kind of actor that you'll recognize from other work, and he's widely respected among thespians. Many movie-goers think he steals the show.
Olivia Wilde (Quorra) comes in and does what she always does and gives a solid performance. She's never been nominated for a major award ceremony, but it's only a matter of time.
As alluded to earlier, much of the technical portions for the film are superb. Being in a digital world that doesn't always mimic ours. Some sounds are going to be different. The light-cycles won't sound like motorcycles and so on. They are unique. *There's a Tron: Legacy roller coaster in Shanghai based on the light-cycles that I'd love to experience one day.
Another small attribute I enjoy is the movie's color palate. The main combo of dark brooding black and grey combined with light blue helps provide the feel of the world. To me, it's a big deal that you never felt that you weren't in the creation. You stay with the characters, and nothing seems out of place to distract from it all.
Jeff Bridges also plays Clu which is the program that takes over. They use deaging/other technology to reconstruct his face which can be seen in other films including Rogue One and Blade Runner 2049. Now, Tron: Legacy is a 2010 film, and we were probably five years out from really fine tuning this process. Although, it's still not perfect. It's not too distracting, but every so often it takes away from the movie which hurts the grade of the movie.
In addition, I appreciate the impressive effort to have meaningful cinematography. Lots of science fiction films let the visuals do all the work, but Claudio Miranda gives it extra effort.
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