Pros: Campy, somewhat funny but for unintended purposes.
Cons: Cheesy special effects and a dull storyline.
The Bottom Line: Only watch this movie for camp value. It isn't cool and if you thought it was cool in 1982, you won't think so now.
Plot Details: This opinion reveals everything about the movie''s plot.
I typically write reviews off the cuff, then edit. As of right this moment I have no idea how to rate Tron.
I was thirteen the first time I saw it and at the tail end of a video game addiction (it is hard for me to stay addicted to something that 1) is designed to make sure you lose and 2) doesn’t really tell a story). And even for the special effects of 1982, Tron doesn’t rate.
The plot is fairly simple. Flynn (Jeff Bridges) is a rogue and renegade programmer whose programs for video games were stolen by Ed Dillinger (David Warner). The company they worked for installed a master control program that became, in the words of The Terminatorself-actualized. The MCP wants to take over the world. Flynn is only trying to get evidence that he created the video games. While doing this, he is pulled, literally via laser, into the ‘game grid’ where he is expected to play games until he dies. He and a couple of other renegade programs run through a type of virtual city minus windows to get to the MCP and destroy it. Will they make it?
This is a movie made during Disney’s dark days. Tron and the uber dark The Black Hole were movies that the studio was making as the ship was sinking. The Little Mermaid saved Disney from the trash heap. But there is one thing that all Disney movies have in common: they all have happy endings (or sappy endings, they rhyme which is close enough for Buena Vista).
I can argue that the film gave us three things only one of them can be considered to be ‘good’ and at that only as a time waster. Due to certain scenes that occur while Flynn transports in and out of the game grid, I can argue that the developers of Tetris were fans of this film.
Computer viruses are another thing I think you can blame on Tron. They would have happened anyway because programmers are programmers and will play naughty when playing nice stops being fun or profitable. But given the structure of little blue programs running around in a very red world causing havoc where they go . . . that is the definition of a computer virus even if viruses aren’t necessarily blue.
Perhaps the evilest thing of all that can point to Tron as the precedent is The Matrix. I kind of liked the first one; I totally hated the second one, and never bothered with the third. However, the idea of someone within a system becoming self actualized and fighting a computer program to find some meaning or freedom . . . Pure Matrix--the word is also used in Tron.
A tiny portion of the special effects are still good today. Anything involving the light cycles is still pretty top tier. Everything else though is behind the times even for 1982 since the world had been given 2 of the three Star Wars movies. It shows you how close to the edge Disney was. The worst thing of all was what are called grid bugs: they are green 4 legged spider things that not only look very much like Marvin the Martian but have all the look of being drawn by hand with an amateur holding a t square the wrong way.
For camp value alone, the movie is worth it. It isn’t hysterical camp though, just more droll—you’ll smile at the cheep costumes and props , but likely not laugh. Any movie as dated as this one will bring a chuckle considering the clothing, hairstyles, and glasses (I had no idea that everyone who needed them wore HUGE glasses). At the time, it is possible to believe that some of the cast would be considered attractive; however looking with eyes that are now 25 years older (man I’m about to be sick), not a single cast member would rate.
If you want a trip down Camp Lane or Amnesia Lane, this is worth the time spent. If you remember it being cool, better not to watch it at all—it will only disappoint.
What follows is a symbolic reading driven by politics that could not have been foreseen in 1982.
All of the evil people in the film are piped in red faux neon, the good guys are in blue. The big red thing, the MCP is very red. The MCP wants to take over the world and likes to watch blue guys kill each other—in fact requires this to happen. When the goodest guy throws his Frisbee (yes a Frisbee, it is the so-called code disk) at the MCP and destroys it, all of the red turns blue. One of the blue people now running to clean up the mess made by the very red man is carrying a blue tinged Frisbee. If their aim is true, will they succeed in creating a new happy ending, or is that just the stuff of b movies? ;-P
Recommended:
Yes
