TRON Legacy - a spoiler free review
While I really enjoyed the story of TRON: Legacy (won't spoil it), the lead Garrett Hedlund is flat early & often. One of his worst readings is his first with Bruce Boxleitner, and although things do improve after that scene, its not a drastic improvement. Luckily the rest of the cast is more than capable & it almost seems they are compensating for Hedlund - the stand outs Michael Sheen, Olivia Wilde & of course Jeff Bridges. The other disappointment is Clu's face. Its clearly a good approximation of a young Jeff Bridges, but that's as far as it gets. The real footage of Bridges used in montages at the beginning only serve to highlight these flaws - and its mainly around the eyes that really sticks out. Its just not on the money, especially to those who remember Jeff when he was young. Theres a few fleeting moments when it does actually look him but they are few and far between. Which is majorly disappointing considering that the team that delivered Benjamin Button were responsible for this.
The action sequences are superb as are the FX, seeing the programs splinter into a thousand fragments never got old - which is good because it happens often. There are lots of little throwbacks to the original and I was genuinely enjoying picking every one of them. Don't bother staying through the credits, no extras to see - which I thought there might have been given a certain turn of events towards the climax. Also the score is one of the highlights, but that was pretty clear before the film had even rolled with Daft Punk at the helm.
This was one of the three movies of 2010 that were the most anticipated for me (Inception, Iron Man 2 were the other 2) and it was those 2 major flaws that easily made it the weakest of the 3. With a much stronger lead this could have been one of the best of the year. As it stands, this film never really gets into top gear. Still worth it to catch it in cinemas on cheap ass Tuesday, or for cheaper than standard rates.
3 1/2 stars out of 5
The action sequences are superb as are the FX, seeing the programs splinter into a thousand fragments never got old - which is good because it happens often. There are lots of little throwbacks to the original and I was genuinely enjoying picking every one of them. Don't bother staying through the credits, no extras to see - which I thought there might have been given a certain turn of events towards the climax. Also the score is one of the highlights, but that was pretty clear before the film had even rolled with Daft Punk at the helm.
This was one of the three movies of 2010 that were the most anticipated for me (Inception, Iron Man 2 were the other 2) and it was those 2 major flaws that easily made it the weakest of the 3. With a much stronger lead this could have been one of the best of the year. As it stands, this film never really gets into top gear. Still worth it to catch it in cinemas on cheap ass Tuesday, or for cheaper than standard rates.
3 1/2 stars out of 5