Review: Tron Legacy

Ah...Tron. What a strange film you are. I remember watching bits of you around 3 years ago on TV and wondering 'what the hell is this thing?' I still haven't seen all of the original 1982 film, the one that I guess you could say was way ahead of it's time and can now be considered a flop at the box office. What it did do successfully was create a 'cult' which probably led to the 2010 sequel Tron Legacy we see today.

Well actually, I saw it yesterday and I have mixed views about it. Before seeing the film, I was actually reading a review on the game being released as a tie in 'Tron Evolution' but the article made some very strong points related to the film. Whilst the original film was ahead of it's time, when the general public didn't really know of CLU's and RAM, this film is perhaps past it's time. Nowadays, even 10 year old's know of the ins and outs of computers and slightly older audiences could just laugh off character's called 'Clu' and races called 'ISO's' I'm not sure how true this is but it's certainly a good point - are we as an audience too savvy to find Tron Legacy interesting?

Well I'm not incredibly techno minded, but I found the film interesting. That's not to say good however. I'm not giving spoilers but too be honest, I was waiting for the final showdown between good and bad to happen quite early on. Is this a result of a good storyline with emotional characters? No, I just wanted the end to come. Not so much to get the hell out of the cinema, but just to 'see' the ending. I've now confused myself - is that a result of a good plot? You tell me.

I'm not going to go overboard with describing the visuals. It's pretty obvious they spent a lot of time on them and they do look good. Not mind-boggling good, but then again I didn't see it in 3D, so maybe that was the reason.

A lot of things in the film just didn't make any sense...at all. Large chunks of the film are used to tell of what happened to 'the Grid' and the perfect world Flynn wanted to make in it. To do this he believed in 'Isomorphic Algorithms' or ISO's which are incredibly intelligent forms found in the Grid that could actually  help the real world with religion and science etc. How they could is never really explained and just breezed over, down to sheer laziness on Disney's part I would imagine.

Tron Legacy didn't do amazingly well acting wise, with our protagonist, Sam Flynn, played by Garrett Hedlund, a pretty flat, boring character. Olivia Wilde plays Quorra, the real Kevin Flynn's apprentice and she was fine. Oscar winning Jeff Bridges gave the best performance, as you'd imagine, but even then most of it just involved him doing lots of yoga and meditation. There were also a few odd cameos splashed about - Michael Sheen as some David Bowie-like club owner, Cillian Murphy as some corporate nasty-man and even Daft Punk.

Yet the main star in my opinion was Jeff Bridges CGI younger self -Clu. Digitally made, the character looks like Bridges fresh from the 1982 Tron or there abouts. And my, my it's creepy. There's most certainly a case of teh 'uncanny valley' in question here with Clu*. At first, watching the trailers, I didn't realise it wasn't a real person. But the more I watched, his rubbery face and lack of facial expressions gave it away. You'd think they might have done something about this for the final film but no, it's still there. Over done Botox-Bridges gives one main expression - a creepy looking smile and that's all. Unfortunately, in the end I couldn't really take the character very seriously because of the strange effect he had but it was a good try on Disney's part.

One more thing about Tron Legacy I want to take note of is the amount of Star Wars-like imagery in there. Now, having not seen the original, I don't know whether there was a lot in there, but in this I counted at least 4 to 5 major links. Let's see if I find a few images to show you what I mean...

1) The main character being in some kind of aircraft gunner during a space battle (ok, so it may not look very convincing with these pictures, but if you've seen the film, you should know what I mean).
















2) The main character having a wise-guardian/teacher - I'm mean c'mon, look at these pictures! Plus, in a part of the film Kevin Flynn reprogramme's an evil guard thingy to allow him to fly a jet in the same fashion as Obi Wan using the force to allow them into Mos Eisley Cantina.



3) Tron's evil jet things looked like X-Wings to me.













4)  I can't find any good pictures but in one scene, Quorra's arm get's chopped off - remind you of anyone?

5) Finally, again I can't find any pictures but near the end of the film, people can expect to find huge similarities to Darth Vader and his forces. This in turn mirrors Hitler. That is all I shall say

Ok, this review has gone on long enough. If you liked Tron from 1982 go see this. If you like crazy visuals go see this. If you're bored go see this. But don't expect anything more than a cheesy Disney movie crammed full of 'homages' that doesn't really become what it could have done. It's like Inception but more tech-y! And worse.

* I'm sure you're asking 'what the hell is Uncanny Valley?'

Sudden Realisation.

Ever since I owned a copy of GTA: San Andreas way back in 2004, I have never ever ever played through it's storyline. It's terrible to think now, but back then I was only 12 - all I wanted to do was drive and shoot and blow up thing and mess around.

Skip forward 6 nearly 7 years and me and a friend are trying to complete it (I wouldn't say 100% because that's ridiculous, maybe just the missions and collectibles). Only now do I realise how cheat-y 'Weapons Set 1' was, only now do I realise how incredibly useful the food shops are, only now do I realise how body armour is vital.

This game shows absolutely no damn mercy.

You died? Well back to the hospital, then to the mission again, but now you've got to go get a gun again, and do the whole mission again. It's so tedious, but we will finish this damn game. I love it and now I hate it at the same time.

I'll keep you updated on how it's going, but don't expect anything amazing - my friend can't shoot and I can't drive!

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1: Review

I finally went to go see the new Harry Potter a few days ago, after dangerously trudging through snow and ice to get to the cinema. It is quite ridiculous the amount of snow we're getting at the moment, but digress...

I confess I have not read all of the books (despite wanting to go to university to study English Literature...ahem...) and so, very slightly I was lost concerning the plot. However, I'm sure I also missed a ton of references that only readers will notice, so maybe after all these years I should return to the books - who knows?

Despite these drawbacks, I found the film entertaining. Very much so. It's standard now for the Potter films to be made with such high quality and attention to detail that you almost forget what a polished film it is. The special effects were superb, and yet some so subtle you probably don't even notice them, you expect them.

Fortunately, or unfortunately the film is mainly composed of just Harry, Ron and  Hermione running from a wild goose chase by Voldermort...y'know...the nice politician from Maid in Manhattan? I say fortunately and unfortunately because whilst you get to see some nice acting and all that from the three young stars, you miss out on a lot of the great British talent the past films have scooped up. Smidgens of Bill Nighy, Mark William, Julie Walters, Alan Rickman, David Thewlis, Robbie Coltrane and more crop up, but not enough for me. Of course, the film's based on a book so it's not their fault, but it's a disappointment none the less.

So yes, the film was solid - none of it was amazingly bad (although the cheese factor was knocked up a notch in some cases...BAM!) but then none of it blew me away either. The main reason for this, or indeed the only reason, is because as it says in the title, it is 'Part 1.' In other words, the prequel to the action, the calm before the storm and inevitable most of it therefore is going to be build up and story setting for the final film as it goes out with a bang.

And don't get me wrong, I really do like the story and it all works well but I do have a small problem. I'm not sure whether this is a fault to the film or the books, but the latest cinema outings for the Harry Potter franchise do seem rather bleak and depressing. I am still content with the Chamber of Secrets being my favourite film, or perhaps the Prisoner of Azkaban because they act as the 'Harry learning and growing within the wizarding world' films. In those, everything was fun and light-hearted and there was cool magic and happy people and not everyone was dropping like flies all the time. Now I feel they've went too far the other way and left the films feeling empty. Or this whole paragraph could just be me reminiscing of simpler times when the three stars were young and had nothing to stress over...like me when I watched those films for the first time. Sigh...

Anyways, yes the film was good and yes of course it's made me want to go see the final final but I don't know, something just wasn't right for me and of course, it's only going to get worse in the next film where everything and everyone goes kablamo!!! That's right isn't it? That's what happens!?