Saturday, November 17, 2018

Movie review - "Tron" (1982) **

I didn't much like this when I saw it on VHS as a kid but decided to give it another chance on the big screen - and still didn't like it.

I absolutely respect the intelligence on display, the uniqueness of the vision, the fact that it's trying to do something different.

But it's hopelessly confused dramatically - a real mess. Steven Lisberger doesn't know how to construct scenes or add dramatic tension - this really needed some old hands riding shotgun to help him, and I don't think Disney under Ron Miller was able to do that.

It's not a bad story - David Warner is an evil executive up to No Good, so Jeff Bridges tries to hack into the system and finds himself sucked in to the system. I was constantly confused as to what was happening and why. I'm sure it all made sense once explained but I struggled to follow it.

The action scenes weren't exciting - its remarkably devoid of any tension or thrills.

The frustrating thing is its got so much potential - for instance there's an intriguing love triangle between Bridges, and fellow programmers Cindy Morgan and Bruce Boxleitner. But they don't do any thing with it. Morgan is basically a smurfette. Why doesn't the bad computer make everyone play games?

I respect this. Just don't like it.

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