Clu Dough

I can see Michael Sheen's acting from here.

Told you I'd remember.

I was really looking forward to TRON Legacy, though unsure exactly why. I never had any great love for the first film. It was never some kind of milestone in my development, and I've never been a big fan of video games. Even so, the surprise announcement in 2008 that the project would actually happen was enough to get me excited about the potential for a sequel. Returning to a digital world that was so revolutionary in 1982, aided by 28 years of technological advance, was a journey I was ready to take.

It doesn't help, of course, that I wasn't seeing the film under the best circumstances. Being partially-sighted due to an astigmatic left eye, I can't see 3D pictures, so i had to seek out the one flat showing in Central London. This was in Wandsworth, an hour's journey from my house. On top of that, there was still heavy snow on the ground, making the walk from the station to the cinema a bit dicey, as I was still recovering from food poisoning/a spiked drink/a horrible hangover and blacking out after the office Christmas party two days earlier. More of that another time.

First things first. The film is dazzling. The original had a pretty stunning palette to play with, but this is clearly something else. Director Jospeh Kosinski started out, somewhat improbably, as an architect specialising in 3D modelling, which probably came in handy. As a result, the design work and the direction is a triumph, effortlessly creating a world that feels solid and immersive, while still strangely alien.

This is complimented beautifully by the sound design and Daft Punk's score. Combining their signature propulsive electronica with a theme-laded orchestral sound reminiscent of Hans Zimmer's work in Inception, it has bought the pair a richly-deserved level of mainstream praise. I for one am looking forward to seeing two robots in the audience at the Oscars.

There is a problem with the film, however. It's a big one. It's even the same one as Avatar had. The script has been assembled - and I do mean assembled - without even an iota of the same degree of imagination as has been employed in the visuals.


Absent Father Reunion Scenario No. 14B.

 Such is the lack of care being displayed by the writers, I would often forget that the film is supposed to be set in a digital world. The set-up for Sam Flynn's character arc is thuddingly obvious from the first scene, where Young Sam is told about the Grid by his unconvincingly-youthful father. A line drop about "playing on the same team", later, we zip to the present day, where Sam's dad has been missing for years and he's filled his time with extreme sports such as motorbike street-racing - and probably Ultimate Frisbee - to fill the void left by his father's absence.

Imagine my surprise when all his hobbies turn out to be incredibly useful, once he's projected into the digital world. Soon, he's throwing identity discs around like he's been doing it his whole life, and manages to defeat villainous henchman Rinzler, the finest Disc Wars player on the Grid, on the first try.

I'm not going to go through the entire story, listing the hurricane of cliches the script runs on, but by the end, as the characters journey to Mordor the portal while trying to outpace Voldemort Clu and a major character who definitely isn't Jesus Aslan a Messiah archetype sacrifices themselves to save the day, you start to realise how hackneyed and dull the story is. Which is a real shame because it didn't have to be like that.



Hitler in a neon jumpsuit.

 Ideas are frequently raised that offer shreds of intellectual interest. The notion that Kevin Flynn and Clu, while being hero and villain, are both discrete aspects of the same person is never looked at in any depth. Neither is a major MacGuffin within the film's fiction, that intelligent life has spontaneously evolved within the Grid itself. Clu sees this as an imperfection to be eliminated, but the ideas behind this are never anything more than a plot device. There is so much that could be so done, and so little effort being made to expand the TRON universe.

A truly surprising aspect is how strong the performances are. Jeff Bridges is typically effortless in his dual role, and Michael Sheen hams it up in a fashion that's entirely appropriate. Garret Hedlund - a menace to spellcheckers everywhere - acquits himself well despite the limitations of his character, but the real pleasure is in watching Olivia Wilde. No, I don't mean that. Well, no solely that. She takes a very generic character - that of the Amazonian warrior who falls for the hero - and injects some much-needed humanity into her performance. There is an unexpected strength in the writing, in that the love story between Quorra and Flynn seems to be drawn entirely from the performances. There is no expository dialogue and no cathartic kiss at the climax. If such deftness was possible here, why not elsewhere?

The success of the film, and the already commissioned animated series, means that a sequel is likely. Hopefully this would expand on the strengths of the concept, picking up threads such as Cillian Murphy's cameo as the son of David Warner's villain from the first film - the second Murphy performance this year as a the son of an amoral executive - the evolution of the Grid and consequences of the film's climax. There is so much potential for matching jaw-dropping spectacle with brain-tingling ideas. If only they'd done it the first time.