TRON Is Intriguing But Disorienting

I’ve been hearing a lot about TRON, the geeky Disney cult classic whose sequel is about to hit theaters, and I decided that it was high time to familiarize myself with the first movie. It seems a little odd to me that I never watched it, as extensive as my Disney viewing has generally been, but it wasn’t a movie that ever really had much of a pull on me. It seemed a bit too... technological. Still, I was curious to check it out, which Dad and I did this past rainy Saturday afternoon. Since he teaches computer programming, I thought the movie would probably make more sense to him than to me, but ultimately both of us found it pretty disorienting.

Jeff Bridges stars as Kevin Flynn, a brilliant programmer who has been denied credit for his work. After his program starts to go haywire, he finds himself sucked into it, rather in the manner of Fantastic Voyage. Instead of being inside a person, he’s inside a program, and it’s up to him, along with some intrepid helpers, to get things running smoothly again. I’m mostly familiar with Bridges from later movies, where he always looks pretty scruffy and weathered, so it was interesting to see him here, so youthful and with a Steve Gutenberg-esque twinkle in his eye. He makes a good leading man and plays well opposite Bruce Boxleitner as Alan Bradley, whose in-program counterpart is Tron. As Tron, he’s pretty dashing and heroic, but I prefer the rather bumbling Alan with his gargantuan glasses. Cindy Morgan is a valuable ally to both as Lori / Yori, Alan / Tron’s spunky love interest.

The world within the computer program is very visually striking. When my dad went to rent this, the clerk warned him not to expect much in the way of special effects. What was cutting-edge at the time looks pretty dated now. I didn’t mind it in terms of looking cheesy, but the visuals actually kinda gave me a headache after a while. However, there are aspects of this world that look very cool, including the light cycles, whose geometrically precise races with each other remind me of the cellular automata programs Dad used to spend so much time working with. I also loved the appearance of the water that the characters inside the program drink to replenish their strength.

The world within the video game is dark and oppressive, which is mostly a reflection of the evil master control program that has overtaken it. I was intrigued when I saw that David Warner was in this movie, as his warm, humble Bob Cratchit is my hands-down favorite ever, while he convinced me of his range by completely repulsing me in Titanic. His role here is rather like the latter, and his icy delivery is mesmerizing. As performances go, I was also impressed with Barnard Hughes as Dr. Walter Gibbs, a kindly scientist whose video game counterpart serves as a guardian keeping riff-raff out, and Dan Shor moved me as Ram, a zealous idealist for whom Flynn’s presence represents a profound affirmation of all that he holds dear. There are some interesting philosophical ideas brought up throughout the movie, and Ram is at the heart of many of them.

While I liked several of the characters and found the premise intriguing, I found that more often than not, I didn’t have a very clear idea of what was happening and why. I found it hard to follow, with a whole lot of wandering around down dark corridors in a strange half-light. I knew what the ultimate goal was, but I didn’t really have a handle on the steps of the process. So for me, I liked the general plot and individual moments, but I had a hard time staying engaged.

I’m glad I watched TRON, and after seeing the trailer on the big screen when we went to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I last night, I’m jazzed to see TRON Legacy. I just hope I find it a little easier to tell what’s going on.