Movie Review: Tron

Tron was on my list for a couple of reasons. A, it’s a sci-fi classic that I’ve never seen, and 2, like The Day The Earth Stood Still, there’s a second movie that I intend to see — or there will be soon. Tr2n, or Tron 2.0, was announced at last year’s Comic Con, and I decided that I should get caught up and see the original before the second one comes out.

Tron is the story of a wronged computer programmer, Flynn, a bright and talented coder whose work and position have been stolen from him by a less-talented co-worker. Flynn attempts to break into his former employer’s network to find proof of that the thief’s rise to power was accomplished through illicit means, when he himself is sucked into the computer by the malicious and sentient Master Control Program. Flynn must navigate through the computer with the aid of the downtrodden programs there and find a way to overthrow the MCP to restore the system to its original, free state and recover the data that will restore him to his rightful place — the executive position that was usurped by his plagiarizing co-worker.

Tron was a disappointment to me. I love the premise and it has a lot of potential, but the implementation is lacking. The CGI is impressive for the time (1982), but it seems like they focused on the pretty computer graphics to the exclusion of a decent script. It looks like they threw a bunch of digital artists and graphics programmers in a room and told them to make a movie. It watches more like a graphics demo than an actual movie. The cheese factor is through the roof and the dialogue is lacking. The best character is a bit, the smallest unit of data in a computer, only capable of storing a single 1 or 0. The bit, consequently, is only able to say “yes” or “no” — and somehow has the best lines in the whole film!

The good points of the movie… well, as I said, the concept has a lot of potential. The graphics are quite impressive for the time. Some of the games the computer programs play are quite entertaining, and might be fun as actual video games. The bit, as noted above, has some very entertaining lines. And… that’s about it.

Overall, I don’t recommend Tron. I’m glad I watched it so that I can say that I’ve seen it — it’s worth some geek cred, at any rate — but there are many movies I’d much rather have spent the time on. Two stars out of five.

Wait for the sequel — I have high hopes that it will far outshine the original.