flynn lives... and rocks

labels film

i’m a huge fan of movies from the 70s. it’s a decade that gave us some of the best movies *ever* made. there's a grittiness to them, because moviemaking hadn’t fully entered into the realm of ‘wizardry pokery’ so they had to be stories that were interesting and exciting. but more importantly – because they had ’actors’ rather than celebrities. as an adult i love movies like the godfather, kramer vs kramer, jaws, badlands, the conversation, alien, rocky, the deer hunter, and apocalypse now to name but a few. there are few movies from that decade that i remember from my childhood – but those that i do i hold fondly, close encounters of the third kind, the fox and the hound, e.t., star wars, the towering inferno, superman, etc. but if you say two specific words to anyone [at least any boy] who grew up in the 70s you will see a smile appear on their face. those two words are ‘light cycles’.

i remember that as a kid that if you didn’t go to watch the latest movie at the cinema you had to wait the long 12 months for it to be released onto vhs [or beta as it was in our house!] otherwise you had to wait till christmas to watch your favourite films on the only 3 channels that were available way back then.
anyway, getting to the point - one of my childhood favourites is tron. tron is a real geekfest for someone who grew up alongside the dawn of video games and computers. it was so cutting edge and so so different to anything that had gone before. in fact if you’ve seen the matrix then you full well know that tron is where the idea of man made machines going bad and taking over came from.
getting even *more* to the point, this is not a review of the original tron from the early 80s. no siree, this is my short review of the latest movie i’ve watched this week. the follow up to tron. tron: legacy.
legacy begins in 1989, seven years after the events of the first movie. flynn (brilliant bridges) imparts a short catch up bedtime story to his son, then goes missing. sam [the son] grows up into a rebel of sorts and when he is told of a message from his father, he begins a journey that will take him into ‘the grid’ his father created. here he becomes a player in the now corrupt cyberworld controlled by the corrupt CLU [cgi bridges]. and so the story goes on.
first off i have to say that this tron movie is an absolutely incredible visual feast. the colous, the games [particularly the light cycles!], the sound - it’s stunning. in fact it’s the first film that i wish i’d seen in 3d.
set almost entirely in ‘the grid’ apart from the opening and ending, the film and it’s story is spellbinding. helping this atmosphere and overall feel of the future is the daft punk soundtrack which is just too cool! it’s the best soundtrack i’ve heard to a movie in years.
bridges has some great lines with "It was bio-digital jazz, man!" being amongst my favourites. is there nothing this dude can do to *not* be the best thing in any movie he is in. he’s not even the main charcter and he’s the one that sticks in your head when the movie is over! but if you blink you’ll miss the appearance of tron himself which was a little dissappointing - given the movie’s title and the fact that brucie boxleitner is also great. i really thought he’d play a bigger part than he did. shame. michael sheen comes very close to wrecking the movie with his ridiculous nightclub owner, but i won’t hold it against him - he’s memorable.
the movie is at heart a tale of good versus evil and is a refreshing change from some of the disney pap that gets churned out. or even the supposedly kid friendly movies that are as vacuous as a really vacuous thing in a very big vacuum. yes i’m looking at you marmaduke!
so after 30 years tron is back and i didn’t expect to, but i loved every minute of it.
as did my boys who watched it the night before me and informed me that “it was brilliant!”.
knowing how picky my boys can be about a movie - it’s high praise indeed.
anyway - you get light cycles!! that should be all that you need for a reason to go watch it.