So I went to check it out, in 3d no less. My wallet is still feeling the burn. Grrrr.
It was not as bad as it could've been, but it wasn't anything special either. I'll start with
the good news:
1. Sick EFX. Yep...it's got em, but it pretty much had to didn't it. 2. The leading man (Garrett Hedlund) did a surprisingly good job. I thought, going in, that I wouldn't like him in the role, but he pulled it off, and my prejudices were unfounded. 3. There's a lot of cute little nods to the old movie, for those paying attention, to find. 4. Castor/Zuse (Michael Sheen) is an unexpected pleasure in this. He plays this Aladdin Sane looking club owner in the digital world, and breathes some much needed fun into this movie 5. Cora (Olivia Wilde) is hot, and a pretty good actress too.
now for the bad news:
1. 3D is a gimmick, and a rather tedious one at that. If you're gonna do 3D, do it all the way. Nothing is more alarming than watching a mostly 2D film, and having it cut to 3D during certain sequences. I hate that. I recommend seeing the purely 2D version.
2. Jeff Bridges is a good actor, but he's no David Warner. Not even close. The original Tron had a real bad ass villain. This one...not so much. He's that whole kind of gray villain that you see so often in films these days. S.A.R.K. would've ate this sucker for breakfast.
3. Must all children in films have mop tops? Must they? I lived through 1985, and I can tell you that no kid would've been caught dead with that hairstyle back then. It looked right now, or from the 70's, but not goddamn 1985. Sorry.
4. The X factor. Yeah they do this a little bit in here, and it's completely unnecessary. They already establish Sam Flynn as being an adrenaline junkie by showing him driving a Ducati like an asshole. Does he really need to do base jumping and parkour too? I kept waiting for a Mountain Dew logo to pop up.
5. The music. Now I will give proper credit to Daft Punk. They really tried to be cinematic, and for any other Hollywood movie, it would fit pretty well. Not for Tron. A big reason the first movie was so awesome was the Wendy Carlos soundtrack, steeped in 20th century composition, mooged out in all it's glory. Now you can't tell me that the rodent overlord doesn't own the rights to that shit. Daft Punk should've remixed it or something. I can't help thinking that Jega would've done a better job. Listen to the first track on 'Geometry' and tell me I'm wrong. There's a lot of real boring music in here that sounds like a video game trailer, with all of teh epic awsum crap that makes me wanna shoot myself in the head. That shit is so cliché.
Did I have fun watching it? Yes. Do I need to see it again? No. Will I buy the DVD? No. Is the original Tron better? Without question.
Conflict of interest anyone? Wake up. These people can't even be bothered to cover up their tracks anymore, because, seriously, no one seems to care. It's all just a totally hypocritical sleigh ride into corruption hell isn't it.
Here's some things I'd like to see happen to the judicial branch of our government.
#1 No lifetime appointments. Some would call it term limits. I call it necessary. #2 Elections. No more appointments. You gotta run for it, and when you do... #3 Your election money comes out of a balanced, puclicly scrutinized campaign fund of public money. That's right slimy business people. No way. You've already ruined the legislative branch.
We can not afford to let public servants get away with stuff like this.
Justice is supposed to be blind, not lacking in vision.
So I went to go see it last night. Out of all the CS Lewis books in the Narnia franchise, I liked this one the most. The movie is very well done. EFX are superb, as usual. The acting is pretty strong. Eustace is great fun. They cast him perfectly. There really isn't too much to find fault with here. They did edit the book, severely. The film's plot feels hurried along in spots, but I respect the director's decision to not make this a 3.5 hour self indulgence festival. It is very Christy, but I knew that going in. The book is too. The one thing that has always baffled me about Narnia is why the protagonists are always so desperate to get home. See, if I'm a magical prince, with power over millions of people, critters, centaurs and unicorns, why the fuck would I ever want to go back to England. Nothing against the UK here, but it falls a bit short compared to magic silly power world. It's worth it just for the uncomfortable sea serpent. That thing is just wrong.
PS saw the Transformers 3 preview. Yawn. Why do they keep making these?
Well GOP...you've done it again. You've astounded me with your out-of-touch, short-sighted greed. Thank you all ever so much for making sure that poor Kim Kardashian, and poor Justin Bieber won't have to fork over too much money to the federal government. Thanks a trillion.
I really don't care one way or the other. My taxes will suck. They always suck. They've never gone down once in my lifetime, and I'm quite sure they never, ever will. Now, I understand the right-leaning view on this: good old laissez-faire economics, which, if you are big company doing business here, isn't such a bad thing. The left needs to understand that if our government creates too toxic of a business atmosphere here, they'll take their business elsewhere. This is why when your computer messes up, you get connected to Chennai. But a whole bunch of that wealthy 2% doesn't really smear it around the economy nearly enough. They sit on it, and make money off of their money. Most of the time, they are positioned intelligently offshore...just like our jobs. See the problem?
Blame Obama all you want. He is not responsible for the sorry state of our country. Unchecked greed coupled with a faulty understanding of debt management are.
Wake up and smell the misery GOP. We the (middle class) people, are waiting.
I imagine Jega did work on this movie in some capacity and he has to wince--at least internally, subconsciously--at the thought of Daft Punks involvement.
Rave Tarp-->I haven't seen it, but that's what the costume design looks like to me. I did see a preview and Disneyland and it looked pretty tits, but didn't really seem to relate to computers...more like a scene from a gladiator movie.