TRON (1982) / Sci Fi-Action

MPAA Rated: PG for sci-fi action violence and brief mild language.
Running Time: 96 min.

Cast: Jeff Bridges, Bruce Boxleitner, David Warner, Cindy Morgan
Director: Steven Lisberger
Screenplay: Steven Lisberger
Review published February 10, 1997

Kevin Flynn (Bridges, Cutter's Way), video game programmer, is ripped off of several ideas by an unscrupulous power hungry man named Ed Dillinger (Warner, Time Bandits). Dillinger soon starts a meteoric rise to the top of a powerful global company, while the computer that runs it has become so powerful that it is a life-force unto itself, thinking and talking (not to mention plotting world domination). Flynn tries to hack into the computer to get evidence of Dillinger's theft, when the Master Computer sucks Flynn into it's own cyber-world where programs in the form of the programmers that created them are mere toys by which Master Computer uses for it's own enjoyment.

An experience more of the sight than the mind. Truly gorgeous and mind-blowing special effects are the must-see highlight of this otherwise poorly scripted misfire from Disney. All the ingenuity went into creating the fantasy world of special effects, while none seem to have made it's way into a script that has little in the way of humor, with sparse dialogue barely rising above the level of a comic book.

David Warner is a dull villain, while Bridges and Boxleitner ("The Scarecrow and Mrs. King") can't breathe any life into their laughably trite lines. With such a surreal and breathtaking visuals, and a storyline falling somewhere between Metropolis and Wizard of Oz, this film could have been a great movie with a better writer/director than Lisberger. Fans of eye-candy will enjoy the film, but everyone else may fall asleep from the tedium.

-- Followed by TRON: Legacy (2010)

Qwipster's rating::

©1997 Vince Leo