Tron: Legacy (review with SPOILERS)

[Afterthought]

Tron: Legacy is an awesome flick. I know, it sounds odd just to say it out loud. The original film was done almost 30 years ago, and the promo stuff started 3 years ago! But it is an awesome ride, from a light cycle to a light plane, it's got the goods. Spoiler time:

Sam, son of Kevin Flynn, is a chip off the old block. Very smart, very technologically gifted. So much so, the opening of the film grabs you during his hi-tech hi-jinx. And it keeps on pulling. A mysterious page has come from the long abandoned Flynn's arcade, and so Sam goes to investigate. Sam gets accidentally sent into the Grid, the world from the first film.

He plays the Grid games and wins a bit, but before having his chips cashed in, it's discovered he's human. CLU, Kevin's avatar from the first film, has turned to the dark side and taken over the Grid world. CLU and Sam fight in one of the cooler movie battles you'll ever see, only for Sam to be saved by the standard movie hot chick.

Kevin and Sam get a brief reunion time and it's heart felt all around. Kevin explains that he never left the Grid world because of the mysterious, miracle-like existence of a new life form, dubbed ISO's. They weren't programmed into the original code, so nobody can determine how they came into being. This angered CLU, so he took it upon himself to unseat Kevin and commit genocide on the ISO's. CLU then later sent the page to lure Sam into the Grid in hopes of luring Kevin out of hiding. CLU needs Kevin because Kevin's disc could help him get through a portal into our world, with his new army and armada in tow. See, CLU wants perfection all over, so he's coming here to do it.

Some fights and betrayals later, we get to see light jets and an awesome aerial battle.
So of course as the movie ends, we all arrive at the shiny portal out.
Some slight of hand later, and Sam and hot chick get out.
The fate of Tron and the Grid world is left unknown as all we get is a giant blinding explosion.
Hot chick gets the actual sunset she's always wanted as the movie ends. How cute.

Final thoughts: any review that starts out with "I don't understand video games" don't bother reading.
Conversely, anybody who ripped this for doing re-shoots is out of their mind as whatever they redid they did right!
I will admit, the 3D is ok, but it's not needed.
Daft Punk does such an awesome job on audio (get the soundtrack) that they got to play the DJ's in the film.
When Kevin goes all Matrix-like, you know it's on.
Speaking of Kevin, Jeff Bridges plays both hero and villain quite well.
The Big Lebowski moments that get snuck in are awesome
This film is visual gold. The graphics are worth a watch alone.
You don't get lost in the Grid world, it's all paced very well.
It's well acted, well written, and well thought out.
Movie of the year? close - 9.532 smashies.

[OPIE]

Excellent movie. AT's review is spot on.

[Vanish]

The CGI of Jeff Bridge's face from 30 years ago that they mocapped form his current face speaking the lines and the mapped onto the head of a stunt actor is simply amazing. Yes, you can tell it's CG if you really pay attention to it, but I think being a program in the grid makes that not only more acceptable, but down right perfect.

Here's what Craig didn't mention: If you're a true computer geek, the movie had more homages to the glory days of computing than you can shake a stick at. The so-called Big Lebowski moments are actually an homage to the MIT Hackers from the 60s. Word for word, homages.

The command line commands issues are all genuine. Everything in the grid is binary based. Look around. My favorite is the number of prisoner cells on the flyers. 8, the same number of bits in a byte, which makes up one character. The tie-in there, well, I let you figure it out.

My one complaint about the movie? Rinzler/Tron. Pure Hokey. Sorry. Well, that and the fact that the ISOs could never exist, but then neither could a grid with users and programs mixed.

[Xero]

Saw this movie the other night and really enjoyed it; will definitely be picking this up on Blu-Ray when it releases next month. Daft Punk is putting out a remixed TRON album next month as well so I will have to check that out too =)