Tron: Legacy (2010)

Your Old Man’s About to Knock on the Sky and Listen to the Sound

I’ve been harboring a hankering to watch this movie again for a while.  I believe I initially saw the movie in theaters, and then I purchased the special edition BluRays when they came out, and I’ve probably seen the movie some three times by now.  But I haven’t reviewed it yet.  When I started reviewing movies, this one was in my mind as one I was looking to get to at some point, but it wasn’t until Fabian recommended it that I actually bothered to get around to it.  I felt it necessary to knock out the original movie yesterday, and today we get into Tron: Legacy, written by Adam Horowitz and Eddy Kitsis, directed by Joseph Kosinski and John Lasseter, and starring Garrett Hedlund, Jeff Bridges, Olivia Wilde, Anis Cheurfa, Bruce Boxleitner, James Frain, Michael Sheen, Beau Garrett, Cillian Murphy, Jeffrey Nordling, and Daft Punk.

Not too long after the events of the first Tron film, Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) goes missing.  His son, Sam (Garrett Hedlund), does not take it that well.  20 years later, he’s ENCOM’s primary shareholder, but has no interest in running his father’s company.  He instead prefers to play a prank on the company every year, like releasing their new operating system to the world for free.  His father’s longtime friend, Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner), comes to him to investigate a mysterious page he’s received from Flynn’s arcade, even though the place has been abandoned and the phone lines shut off for many years.  Sam goes to check it out and finds his father’s hidden office and, while messing around on the computer there, activates the laser that transported his father into the Grid years ago.  Now in the Grid, he’s instantly captured and put into the games, having to fight for his digital life by throwing Frisbee’s at other guys, eventually losing to a program called Rinzler (Anis Cheurfa).  Rinzler takes Sam to someone that appears to be his father, but actually turns out to be a program his father created called CLU (played by Jeff Bridges and computers).  CLU then attempts to kill Sam on the light cycle tracks, but he’s rescued in the nick of time by Quorra (Olivia Wilde), who takes Sam to see his real father.  Then shit starts to get hairy.

I really like this movie, and I’m not sure why I’m apparently one of the few.  This movie was poorly received, and I get the feeling like people’s nostalgia and love for the original movie probably hindered their ability to appreciate this movie.  Having no particular affection for the original, I found this to be a pretty great and enjoyable movie.  And I’m not sure why the fans of the original seemed to take so much issue with this when it appeared to me that the writers had a great affection for the original.  They threw a lot of things in the movie that were big nods to the original movie, like repeating the joke about the big door, the look and style of Flynn’s arcade, the little handheld device Flynn was messing with in the first movie, and a couple other hidden Easter eggs.  And, when compared to the original Tron, the story here was much better.  Unlike the first movie, there was actually an emotional connection developed in the story for the characters.  You had Sam’s desertion issues, Flynn regretting what happened himself, Quorra being the last of her kind, etc.  The first movie didn’t even seem to take the idea that they could write interesting and flawed characters into consideration.  And the overall story of the movie has much more on the line than one guy wanting to get his comeuppance by proving that he made the games that made ENCOM famous.  They were saving the world, man!  This is not to say that I found the story of this movie to be perfect, of course.  Just superior to the original.  I admit that I did not understand what they were talking about with the ISO’s.  They were some sort of aberration in the Grid that somehow held the potential to resolve various mysteries in science, religion, and medicine.  …How?  They’re just some kind of randomly occurring program.  Is this the same kind of thing like giving a room full of monkeys some typewriters and waiting for them to write Shakespeare?  My best guess is that the writers wanted to keep up the religious overtones they had laid out in the movie (with things like Flynn coming off as God, but God that loves weed or something) and wanted them to represent miracles, but also not bothering to try to define anything about it because they couldn’t figure it out.  Well, CLU gets all threatened by the chosen people of the Grid and gets his genocide on with them, making him basically bio-digital Hitler, man.  I still wonder what would happen, in the minds of the writers, if someone like Quorra got out into the world.  What would that mean?  Would she still have the potential to inexplicably solve the world’s problems, or would she just be some girl that gets locked up because she’d seem crazy because she grew up in a computer?  Either way, I found the conclusion of this movie much more satisfying, though slightly depressing as well.  Whereas the other Tron movie just ended with a guy landing a helicopter on top of a building, this ending has loss, sacrifice, but also an uplifting and somewhat happy ending.

Much like the original, the look of this movie elevates it above its own station.  At least SOME parts of it do.  The movie captures the style of the first movie, but advances it to fit the world as it is today.  With today’s technology, it would’ve been really easy to have the look of the game simply duplicate the original Tron, but that wouldn’t make sense.  The look of that movie was made to look like the video games available at the time, most of which are just slightly more graphically advanced that Pong.  With the state of video games today, this movie needed to look much better, and it does.  It also reflects the change in the system since CLU took over, coming off a lot darker in tone while still being cool and stylized, just as it was in the original.  It’s probably slightly less stylized because it didn’t originate a lot of the look, but it’s cooler because it’s dark and metal.  Like Mastodon.  Of course, there is a problem with the look and it’s one that was talked about frequently when the movie came out: young Jeff Bridges.  You could tell that they tried really hard to make that work.  They did facial captures from Bridges so that the computer could replicate the performance, they used facial captures from Bridges in Against All Odds to get the look and the age right, and they had a stunt double duplicate Bridges’ performance so that nothing was left out.  And it looks like young Jeff Bridges … kinda.  It suffers from the Uncanny Valley thing that the Polar Express suffers from.  It’s so close to being human, but still obviously not, and comes off as a little unsettling.  You know what doesn’t?  The four Siren cyber broads!  But one could argue that they were just four hot chicks in skintight clothes.  The action in this movie was far superior to the stuff in Tron.  The memory disk battles were exciting and well-choreographed.  The light cycles looked awesome and the animation of the light cycle battle was exciting and cool, and they no longer had to travel in straight lines.  There’s even an awesome airship battle.  So much better than Jai A-Die that they played in the first movie.  And the thing I respected most about the movie is how they handled the fact that things were going to die in this but it’s a Disney movie.  Instead of blood, the characters bled bits and disintegrated, leaving some crushed up glass in a pile on the floor.  This looked cool and allowed them to do badass things like shooting a character through the face, leaving a big gaping hole, but as something that kids could watch.  Another thing worth mentioning about this is the music by Daft Punk.  I’m typically the exact opposite of a techno fan, and that doesn’t usually change very much for the typical DJ music, but I enjoyed the score that they put together for this movie.  It elevated the feeling of the scene, and techno was really the only kind of music you could use in this setting.

I don’t have a problem with any of the performances in this movie.  I feel sorry to say that Jeff Bridges gives another performance that’s very similar to The Dude in this movie.  Flynn was vaguely Dude-esque in the original Tron, but in this one – with all the talk about bio-digital jazz and knocking on the sky to see how well it held the room together or some shit – he really reminded me of the Jeff Bridges performances I’ve seen before, or sometimes a Ninja Turtle.  His performance of CLU wasn’t particularly Dude-esque, but I’m beginning to feel bad about this.  I really like Jeff Bridges as an actor, but I just keep reviewing movies that he chose to act Dude-y in.  Because of that, I’m going to review True Grit tomorrow.  There’s no way I could call Rooster Cogburn similar to the Dude.  Garrett Hedlund didn’t really impress or disappoint.  I really liked Olivia Wilde’s Quorra character though.  It’s not the most revolutionary character for a girl to be cute, innocent, and naïve, but it’s a likeable character type.  And she’s hot, so she’s got that going for her.  I had thought myself so clever for saying that Michael Sheen’s Zuse character reminded me of David Bowie, but Wikipedia tells me that he based his performance on him.  Well fuck you too, Wikipedia!  I also really liked Anis Cheurfa as Rinzler.  His face was never seen and he didn’t need to act, but the capoeira fighting style was pretty awesome to watch.

Tron: Legacy is a really cool movie, and far superior to the original as far as I’m concerned.  Unlike the original, there is actual depth in the story, some emotional impact, and the action is much more interesting.  The original Tron only had the looking going for it, and this movie keeps that going and looks much better, though perhaps slightly less of an accomplishment in the style category.  I definitely recommend watching Tron: Legacy, and I think the only reason you might want to bother watching the original is because it helps you understand this movie.  Tron: Legacy gets “Bio-digital jazz, man” out of “You’re messing with my Zen thing, man.”

Let’s get these reviews more attention, people.  Post reviews on your webpages, tell your friends, do some of them crazy Pinterest nonsense.  Whatever you can do to help my reviews get more attention would be greatly appreciated.  You can also add me on FaceBook (Robert T. Bicket) and Twitter (iSizzle).  Don’t forget to leave me some comments.  Your opinions and constructive criticisms are always appreciated.

In Time (2011)

For a Few to be Immortal, Many Must Die

I confess that I never had any interest in watching today’s movie.  And yet, while thumbing through a RedBox, I decided to pick it up.  I’m an enigma.  The movie seemed like a fairly typical action movie that even the very attractive cast could not pique my interest in.  But it was slim pickings in the RedBox that I went to, so you take what you can get for your entertainment dollar.  But I’ve been surprised by movies before, so let’s see how this one did.  Today’s movie is In Time, written and directed by Andrew Niccol, and starring Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried, Cillian Murphy, Vincent Kartheiser, Matthew Bomer, Alex Pettyfer, Olivia Wilde, and Johnny Galecki.

What a shocker!  It’s the future and it’s not looking that bright.  Well, one part of it is: everyone in the future stops aging at the age of 25.  The catch is that everyone is given one year’s worth of time, starting at that age.  The time can basically act as money.  You earn it by working, you spend it on living.  But when you run out of money, you drop dead.  We follow a 28-year-old factory worker named Will Salas (Justin Timberlake) who lives with his mother, Rachel (Olivia Wilde), and struggle to get by day by day.  All that changes when he saves the live of a guy named Henry Hamilton (Matthew Bomer), who repays Will by giving him 116 years and then “times out” (dies).  Will is really excited to give some time to his mom, but she times out as well.  Not really knowing what to do with himself, he decides to go to the rich district to gamble with his extra time.  He wins 1,100 years from businessman Philippe Weis (Vincent Kartheiser) and meets his daughter, Sylvia (Amanda Seyfried).  But Will has a problem: the police force (herein called the Timekeepers) found Hamilton’s dead body and think that Will stole the time from him.  At a party at Weis’ house, the Timekeepers show up to arrest Will, but Will escapes using Sylvia as a hostage.  With all of his time confiscated by the Timekeepers, what is Will going to do next?

Meh.  That’s what I have to say about this movie.  Meh.  The idea of the movie is interesting enough, but the execution leaves the greater majority of the movie people looking at their wrists while holding hands.  It’s not a new idea to film goers that the future is going to be a shitty place.  It’s not a new idea to anyone that rich people lead better and longer lives.  But turning the amount of time you have in this world into currency is a pretty nifty idea.  One that I hope never becomes reality, but it’s okay to watch it in a movie.  If it is something they’re looking at making a reality, I certainly hope they figure out how to transfer time between two people with something more than a handshake.  That shit will get stolen all the time.  Then the world would just be rich people and criminals.  But the movie eventually degenerates into a pretty basic chase movie, and even more often into a futuristic Robin Hood.  The message gets a little lost when Will and Sylvia are doing the right thing (kinda) by taking time from the rich and giving it to the poor, only to have the poor have their time taken and get killed for it.  The movie can’t decide if it wants us to do the right thing or not bother because it will only get people killed.  And to defeat these time thieves, Will must get into something that looks like an arm wrestling match, as if I was watching Over the Top with Sylvester Stallone.  Will also gets blamed for the death of Johnny Galecki because he gave him 10 years and Johnny decided he needed to go blow a year of that on booze and die in the gutter with 9 years left.  His wife then gets all bitchy at Will for that.  He tried to do something nice, bitch!  You’re the one that married the alcoholic!  The movie was not all boring though, and it at least looked good.  It shouldn’t be that hard when everyone in the cast has to be able to play 25.  Some Timberlake for the women, and some Seyfried and Wilde for the men.

The performances were fine enough, but nothing really spectacular behind the physical.  The movie didn’t require a lot of range out of anybody, really.  It was really weird to me to have Timberlake talking to Olivia Wilde as if she was his mother, even though they look to be in the same age range.  And the same could be said for Weis when he introduced his step-mother, wife, and daughter, who all looked roughly the same.  Nobody really had to put on that much of a performance in the movie beyond regular stuff and running a lot.  If you were pretty and able to look at your wrist, you’re in.

In Time is a decent idea that never really got very interesting.  Lots of running, lots of hand holding and clock checking, and pretty people everywhere.  But really not a whole lot more than that.  It’s not a bad movie, but it’s one you can easily do without.  If you need to see it so bad, you can find it at a RedBox, but there are better movies to spend your time with.  And so, In Time gets “Don’t waste my time” out of “I don’t have time.”

Let’s get these reviews more attention, people.  Post reviews on your webpages, tell your friends, do some of them crazy Pinterest nonsense.  Whatever you can do to help my reviews get more attention would be greatly appreciated.  You can also add me on FaceBook (Robert T. Bicket) and Twitter (iSizzle).  Don’t forget to leave me some comments.  Your opinions and constructive criticisms are always appreciated.

The Change-Up (2011)

Can’t Believe You Would Come at Me Guns Hot

Number two in my three part rom-com RedBox spree is a movie I expected to be pretty terrible when I saw it in the kiosk, so that of course made me say “I’m gonna watch that shit.”  I thought I would hate the movie even though it seemed to be a more broad comedy (which I generally enjoy) and sports a cast almost entirely comprised of people I like.  But it’s an overdone premise and seemed more juvenile in it’s comedic choices than I would enjoy.  But who knows, maybe I’ll be surprised.  Let’s find out.  The movie is The Change-Up, written by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, directed by David Dobkin, and starring Ryan Reynolds, Jason Bateman, Leslie Mann, Olivia Wilde, Alan Arkin, Gregory Itzin, Mircea Monroe, and Craig Bierko.

Mitch Planko (Ryan Reynolds) and Dave Lockwood (Jason Bateman) are long time best friends that have gone in completely different paths in life, but still remain friends.  Dave is a successful lawyer, husband to Jamie (Leslie Mann), and father of three children.  Mitch is sort of an actor, but mostly just a poon-hound.  They go out drinking one night and decide it’s a good idea to relieve themselves into a fountain in a park, simultaneously confessing (to varying degrees of honesty) that they envy the other for their way of life.  All the lights in town go out for a moment and go back on.  The two men think it’s suspicious, but conclude their day and return to their respective homes.  When they wake up, they have switched places.  Dave does not have a very packed schedule in the body of Mitch, but Mitch has to take Dave’s place in  a very important meeting that he does not do well in.  He also finds out that Dave’s life is on the rocks in his marriage.  Dave as Mitch gets something put onto his plate when Mitch as Dave realizes that Dave has a thing for Dave’s legal associate, Sabrina McArdle (Olivia Wilde), and sets Dave as Mitch up on a date with her.  Their adventures in the body of the other make Mitch grow up and take responsibilities, but also make Dave appreciate his family more.

I was surprised to say that, when I left this movie, I was actually a little fond of it.  The story is WAY played out and makes you instantly remember a Lindsay Lohan movie, which I generally regard as a pretty big negative, but it has a good, albeit expected, ending that left me satisfied.  There’s a good amount of funny in the movie, but it does start on a very bad foot for me.  Poop and fart humor can be funny if done well, but I don’t think it’s well done when Jason Bateman’s baby rockets shit onto his face, and then directly into his mouth.  It’s more disgusting than anything.  I laughed, but more out of disgust than amusement, and almost instantly felt embarrassed that I had laughed.  And then it made me get a vasectomy.  That one joke killed any future Robert babies.  But, by the end of the movie, I had mostly forgotten this one speed bump and left remembering the actual funny parts.  As I said, the story premise is completely played out, but they did break from some of the traditions.  I was thankful that they didn’t go for the obvious part when Mitch as Dave was in the big, important meeting.  They could have done the cliche part about him accidentally saying something that everyone else misunderstands and takes as a brilliant idea that works out well.  Instead, he fucks everything up and has to work his ass off for the first time in his life to fix it by the end of the movie.  It’s a much better message to say you should work for your wins and not stumble into them like an idiot.  They did have the pretty cliche part where Mitch as Dave does not know how to handle Dave’s two babies, but it was executed well for the most part.  He leaves them on the counter in the kitchen as Dave as Mitch tries to talk him through what he needs to do, and the kids start getting into trouble.  One tries to put his hand in the blender and licks a light socket, and the other is smacking a meat cleaver on the cutting board in front of her, but it goes too ridiculous when that baby tosses the cleaver at her father and it sticks in the cabinet next to him.  There were also some good emotional parts of the movie, mostly around how much Dave works and neglects his wife, and they fit into the movie pretty well, without killing the comedy mood too much.

The performances could be a little hit and miss in this movie.  I love Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman and I think they both deliver their own fair share of the funny in the movie, but they do next to nothing to imitate the other person when they jump into their body.  That’s one of the main parts of a movie like this: you have to try to take on a lot of the the character of the guy inside your body.  I don’t imagine that doing such a thing is easy, but I’m not the actor here.  Leslie Mann does great in this movie.  I wouldn’t say it’s her funniest role (I give that to “Fuckin’ French Toast!”), but she adds a lot of comedy, mostly in parts that seem improvised.  She also does the bulk of the emotional performances in the movie, since Bateman doesn’t realize that she’s kind of unhappy until way late in the movie, but she shows signs of it throughout.  Olivia Wilde is hot.  So hot is she that I actually wrote that in my notes while watching the movie twice.  She also has the beginnings of a sex scene with Ryan Reynolds near the end of the movie.  You catch a little side-boob, and my goodness does she have a nice ass, but it does not ruin it by showing her naked.  It does show Leslie Mann naked a couple of times, and she also has a very nice ass, but I’m pretty sure that it was either body doubled or CG to complete her nudity.  I’m fine with that, though.  I find Mann very attractive, but I like her more as a very funny MILF and think my enjoyment might wane if she got naked.  Also, the male baby kept bashing his head against the crib.  I’m pretty sure it was CG, but I’m positive it was funny.

There are a couple missteps in this movie, but I left pretty happy with the experience.  The story is way played out, and they went with some of the cliches that go along with the premise, but managed to make it their own and break from other cliches.  I like everyone in the main cast, but Reynolds and Bateman could have done better at imitating the other when the time was right.  Not a movie I feel I need to own, but a movie I’m comfortable with having RedBoxed.  And so The Change-Up gets “Life doesn’t always turn out exactly how you plan it” out of “I need to cool it on the Thai food”.

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Cowboys & Aliens (2011)

Today I made a solo run to the theaters to catch the film Cowboys & Aliens, starring Daniel Craig (He’s James Bond), Harrison Ford (He’s Han Solo) and Olivia Wilde (She’s Hot). But before I talk about that, there’s something else that desperately needs my attention.

I don’t remember trailers very often when I go see a movie, but one of them before this movie jammed itself into my brain like an ice pick. It’s a trailer of a soon to be released movie with Liam Neison that seems to try to condense the epic story of a famous game into a movie. Of course I’m referring to Battleship. Who didn’t play that game when they were young and think to themselves “Y’know, the story of this board game is SO GOOD, why hasn’t anyone turned it into a movie?” I may be being slightly facetious, so allow me to reveal my true feelings: What the hell is going on here? Battleship has no story – a trait I foresee it sharing with the movie of the same name – so how can you make a movie out of this? At least it has recognition going for it. Most people in the world know the cliché “You sunk my Battleship” but people seem to forget that the whole quote is “You sunk my Battleship with your gigantic star destroyer”. At least, in this case, I’m sure the movie will sink itself, saving me the trouble of having to sit through it.

And now for our feature presentation: Cowboys & Aliens. This is the story of an amnesiac with a finely chiseled body waking up, kicking some asses, getting arrested, kicking more ass, finding aliens, riding to them, and then kicking a whole lot more ass. These aliens have come to Earth to take our gold because – more than touching people with shining fingers or destroying Tom Cruise’s car – aliens desire “ballah status”. It’s not really made clear, but I believe these aliens needed the gold to melt down and turn into medallions for their rappers to wear. But the aliens aren’t really the focus of the movie, they’re just around. The story more focuses on our hero who’s name escapes me but I vaguely remember it being something like Lonergun. Having just looked it up, it’s Lonergan, but it’s close enough. Anyway, Lonergan (Craig) has amnesia and basically spends the rest of the movie kicking ass and trying to remember stuff. He gets on the wrong side of Dollarhide (Ford, though they choose to spell it Dolarhyde) and hijinks ensue. He also meets a hot chick named Elle (Wilde, of course). Aliens steal their buddies and they all go after them.

I think the biggest problem with this movie is that it left no impression on me whatsoever. I just finished watching it less than a half hour ago and I’m having trouble remembering anything. There was not much suspense, not much action, and when Wilde was neked, you only saw her back from the waist up. And don’t get me wrong, I love big dumb action movies. I fully understand the difference between a movie that means something and a good way to kill 2 hours. I know that I know the difference because I do everything possible to avoid those pretentious meaningful movies. But I only found myself half-way interested in this movie.

I’ve no real rants nor raves to offer you about this movie. It’s a decent enough way to kill 2 hours and you probably won’t be wholly disappointed with the experience. I didn’t go in expecting much, and I was right.

On a scale of 1 to 5, I give it “meh”.