Two of my guilty pleasures are Under Siege and The Rock, which might be the only Nicolas Cage movie that doesn’t make bile creep up my throat. However both of these movies have one thing in common: they advertise themselves as action movies, guaranteeing an adequate amount of dialogue to fashion semi-plausible plot lines and provide some killer action sequences – one-on-twelve knife combat in the former and exciting explosions and biological-warfare-driven suspense in the latter. In the end, the visuals and action sequences define both movies, overshadowing cheesy lines and spotty acting to deliver on their promise to entertain for around ninety minutes. With or without 3-D technology.
That brings us to Tron: Legacy, which purports itself as visual enticement mixed with action sequences. And perhaps I am mistaken, but marketing a film in both Real 3D — and in particular IMAX 3D — would nearly guarantee this to be the result, yes? That said, I had low expectations of everything non-visual or action-related in this movie, meaning that the sloppy dialog would be overlooked as well as the spotty acting — with the exception of Jeff Bridges, who turns in yet another solid performance as both Kevin Flynn and Clu.
However, the biggest disappointment with Tron: Legacy is its paucity of visual creativity and action sequences. While there is a rather suspenseful aerial dogfight toward the end of the film, this ten-minute sequence does not whitewash the prior 115 minutes in which a live-audience-observed motorcycle battle in a three-dimensional circuit stadium boils down to a one-trick show: Flynn’s son Sam (Garret Hedlund) jumps his motorcycle repeatedly from level one to level two until riding alongside another driver, asserting, “We need to work together! It’s the only way!” and then proceeding to destroy four of the five other bikes using the same pretzel-style maneuver. Aren’t these mercenary bikers supposed to be cognizant computer programs, capable of learning from and adjusting to previously observed mistakes?
My previous question points out the glaring problem with this sequel: not that there is a plot hole, but that the plot hole is noticeable and not laughed off like it should be in a visually driven action film. In the same vein, the majority of the screenplay consists of one-syllable or two-word responses like “Cool!” “No way!” “User!” “Game over!” “Look out!” “Clu!” or “Dad!” Again, the issue isn’t that these lines are sloppy ways to spur a plot or that they are delivered as if filmed on three separate sound stages and then pasted together; the issue is that they are perpetually evident.
Steven Seagal is far from a stellar actor, but Under Siege’s combat scenes create a temporary dialogue-amnesia for the viewer. Sure, we could pick, but why bother when Tommy Lee Jones is getting his eye shoved into his skull by a thumb or someone just got eviscerated with a paring knife. Should we care that Arnold Schwarzenegger could barely speak English is Commando when he says things like “Coowwl auf”? No. He previously chopped a guys arm off with an ax, blew things up with a bazooka, and penetrated a guy with a giant pipe!
What else is noticeable is the cinematographical laziness at the end of the film when, upon returning to the real world, Scott wants to show his new machine love interest, Quorra (Olivia Wilde) a sunrise because, while in the video game, she laments never having been privy to one. In the game world (“the grid”), he poetically describes it as “warm” and “radiant,” or rather, like looking at a 100-watt bulb while wearing a sweater. (I was honestly waiting for him to throw in “yellow.”)
Regardless, as the audience waits for this predictable reveal, we see the two of them riding a motorcycle over a bridge while the sun is coming up over the distant mountains that are practically hidden by dark clouds. This either says that Scott has no sense of romance, choosing the worst day ever to show his new mate(?) robot(?) mechanical sex slave(?) something she’s longed to see for a thousand “cycles,” or that the producers were already drastically over budget and there was absolutely no stock footage of a sunrise.
Now, despite the previously mentioned issues with Tron: Legacy, it does have some merit in the way it prophecies the potential mode of making films, perhaps through telecommuting. While Jeff Bridges plays the contemporary Kevin Flynn, a gray-bearded man in his fifties who has been trapped in the computer for twenty years, Bridges also plays Clu, a mirror image of a younger version of Bridges from the original Tron (1982). This is fascinatingly accomplished by superimposing a CGI image of the younger Bridges over a live actor throughout Legacy. I’m not sure if it’s Bridges’ body that the face is riding, but it’s certainly his voice, which means that studios might be on the verge of having actors auction off their digital likenesses and simply lend voice to feature films.
Overall, I’m not sure how I feel about this, but it would be a benefit to those franchises that have surpassed the physical ability of their stars. Take the Indiana Jones films for one. The last one was awful, and the primary, secondary, tertiary, most noticeable one of the reasons was because Harrison Ford is simply too old to play a virile, adventurous archaeologist. Action scenes involving Ford were choppy because the camera often fixated on the back of Jones’ body, indicating the use of a stunt double, and then closed the scene with a shot of Ford’s reaction. One of the very first scenes when Jones falls through the window of a Nazi jeep is a prime example.
Clearly, this method might force some actors — particularly those who found fame through the action genre or with their good looks — to face their own marquee-headlining mortality, and I’m not sure how many will be ready to endorse a check earned solely in this manner. At the same time, this method might also provide second-wind immortality, an ego boost that thrives on knowing their visage keeps waves of viewers hitting the theaters. At the same time, if this technique is applied to actresses, there is a reaffirmation of the woman as sex-object. Not sure how well that will go over either.
That said, the content of Tron is negligible and should only be watched under constant supervision if you suffer from sleep apnea, but the production process creates a novel discourse about the future of technology in film.
DYL MAG Score: 5
