Tron

Directed by Steven Lisberger, Tron follows skilled hacker Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) as he’s sucked into a computer by a malevolent program and forced to participate in a series of dangerous games – with the film primarily following Flynn’s efforts at taking the system down from the inside. It’s an intriguing premise that’s employed to mostly underwhelming effect by Lisberger, as the filmmaker demonstrates an ongoing reluctance to explain the rules that govern the movie’s alternate reality – with the opening stretch set inside the computer immediately cultivating an atmosphere of almost stunning perplexity (ie how long have these programs been sentient? why are they battling one another? who designed their little outfits? etc, etc). There’s consequently little doubt that the film does take a considerable amount of time to get going, with the real-world stuff – involving Bridges’ character and his efforts at hacking into the mainframe – providing the proceedings with much needed bursts of context. But given that the majority of the narrative transpires within the computer-generated landscape, Tron‘s decidedly thin storyline does become more and more problematic as time progresses – which ensures that the compelling vibe established by a handful of early sequences, ie the justifiably legendary light cycle race, is ultimately replaced by an atmosphere of head-scratching indifference (with Lisberger’s increasingly overblown and flat-out incoherent directorial sensibilities cementing this feeling). It’s finally impossible to label Tron as anything more than a hopelessly dated relic of the early 1980s, with the film’s status as a bona fide cult classic nothing short of baffling.

** out of ****