Tron (1982)

Not all cult films have need to have the same massive audiences that The Rocky Horror Picture Show enjoys. Others can develop their own devoted fanbases through means beyond repeated midnight showings. Some become what they are through nostalgia, with fans who loved it in their youth and still loving it when they rediscover it in adulthood. One of these movies is Tron, a movie that I often heard about, that I'd been told was awesome more than once, but never actually had the desire to see.But with a sequel being released next month, and the fact that it's been on my DVR since July and I still haven't watched it, I might as well go ahead and finally see what all the fuss over Tron is about.

Meet Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), a once-successful software programmer for the ENCOM Corporation. He created several video games for ENCOM, but his work was stolen by another programmer named Ed Dillinger (David Warner). Dillinger passed off Flynn's games as his own and earned a series of promotions that eventually made him a high-ranking executive. Flynn, on the other hand, was fired from the company and stuck having to open a small arcade populated by the games that were stolen from him.

In the three years since then, Flynn has spent much of his time trying to hack into ENCOM's systems and find evidence that Dillinger ripped him off. He's eventually locked out of the system by the Master Control Program (voiced by Warner), a self-aware artificial intelligence developed by ENCOM that has been absorbing other programs from around the world to make itself more powerful. He finally gets into the system with a little help from friends and current ENCOM employees Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner) and Lora Baines (Cindy Morgan).

But the MCP isn't going to take this lying down. It zaps Flynn with a prototype laser, one that breaks down objects in the real world and reconstructs them within ENCOM's mainframe. Flynn arrives in a digitized world and is immediately taken prisoner, forced into gladiatorial combat against other programs in the system. He forges an alliance with some of these programs to overthrow the dictatorial MCP and return to the real world.

I don't know if Tron is as awesome as it had been described to me. Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad movie at all. It's actually pretty entertaining. But I just didn't feel that it lived up to all the hype. The biggest flaw with Tron is how dated it feels. The visuals have not aged well at all. But you have to remember that CGI was very primitive back in 1982. After almost three decades of evolution in the field, the effects in Tron are gonna look a little hokey.

However, if you look at it from 1982 standards instead of 2010 standards, it's actually pretty impressive. As far as styles go, it's like an '80s version of what Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller did with Sin City; the actors were filmed in black and whote in front of a black backdrop, with pretty much everything else filled in digitally. Director Steven Lisberger does an admirable job of combining each of the elements at his disposal to craft a rather imaginative piece of work. You'd never know that Tron was Lisberger's first live-action feature film, judging by how good it's put together.

Though digital effects have obviously evolved by leaps and bounds over the last three decades, Lisberger's direction makes the movie engaging and fun nonetheless. It's a captivating movie, one that you can't turn away from. Lisberger shows a lot of talent through his crafting of it. And really, it's a shame that his career dwindled so rapidly after Tron, because I'd like to see what he could do with updated technology. (Then again, I guess that's what Tron's sequel could be for.)

I also liked the movie's score composed by Wendy Carlos. The music admittedly does sound cheesy nowadays, but it works great for Tron. It goes a long way in establishing the movie's tone and atmosphere. And really, isn't that what all good movie soundtracks are supposed to do?

I didn't think Lisberger's script was anything special, though. The dialogue is forgettable, and outside of the "journey into cyberspace" aspect, the characters are just there (with only Flynn, Sark, and the MCP standing out), the story isn't anything that hadn't been seen before. It's really the whole computer world thing that makes Tron's script any different from all the other sci-fi movies of the '80s. I know I'll probably catch hell from at least one Tron fan for saying that, but that's just how I see it.

Wrapping us up is the acting, which is very good all across the board. The bulk of the heavy lifting, though, is done courtesy of Jeff Bridges and David Warner. Both of them are fantastic, as close to perfect as they could get. Bridges is especially good, playing his role with a confidence and swagger that makes his character believable. He's very amiable, and the movie is better for his presence. Warner does some fine work himself as not one, not two, but three characters. He's Dillinger, the voice of the Master Control Program, and Sark, the MCP's primary henchman. Dillinger only has a handful of scenes, and the MCP voice isn't much, so you'll mainly see him as Sark. And his performance as Sark is impressive, giving the movie the effective villain it needs.

Tron is one of those movies that was way ahead of his time. It was so ahead of its time, in fact, that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences refused to nominate it for any special effects Oscars because it viewed the use of computer graphics as "cheating." And while I said I didn't think it was as awesome I'd been led to believe, it's still an immensely entertaining movie. I can't lie, I thought it was cool. So Tron earns three and a half stars on my usual scale, and I'd definitely recommend it to anybody who hasn't seen it yet. Here's hoping that Tron: Legacy is as good.

Final Rating: ***½