Back during San Diego Comic-Con 2010 TRON: Legacy was easily one of the biggest crowd pleasers.  Sure the panel swayed the audience by putting our voices into the movie (unless it was all just a mean trick to laugh at us stumbling over their “follow the bouncing ball” games), but the footage they brought worked its charm on its own as well.  Now that there is more than just a few minutes of footage to show the viewing audience it is easy to say that Legacy sure is as worthy of the “OOO” and “Ah” responses it earned that day in July from its visuals, but unfortunately it doesn’t quite deliver the all around amazing film I had hoped for.

Technically a sequel, Legacy takes place almost 3 decades following the plot of the 1982 original.  This time around we go back to the grid following a new character, Sam, who gets transferred into this digital world after following a mysterious text back to his father’s arcade. Once he is there it is discovered that his father, who has been missing for the past 20 years, has actually been trapped in this world of his own creation, with no hope of escaping until now.  And as we know, nothing is ever really as simple as just a mouse-click away.

Feeling the pull of my deep running Chuck fandom, last summer I decided to give the original Tron a gander to see why it deserved all the screen time in poster form on Chuck’s wall.  Well, with me being a girl spoiled by the films of today, it is no shock that I was not really excited by the cutting edge graphics of the early 1980s.  It really is a film of that time, and with Legacy, we get a film that, technologically speaking, does not fail to deliver the peak of what today’s visual effects artists have to offer.

Legacy starts out strong with the introduction of Sam’s character in the real world, and once he is sucked into the computer things really begin to escalate in excitement.  Showing off The Grid’s key attractions, the reintroduction into this world is one that will not be forgotten.  As a dark world, The Grid looks like an electrified metropolis that comes to life when the sun goes down, and since there is no sun to rise here we are treated to the spectacle of this world for the entirety of the film, something that never loses it’s magnificence.

On top of that, The Grid is more than just pretty pretty lights, throwing some amazing “gaming” sequences into the mix, all being upgraded from their original forms.  Starting with the disc battles, Sam puts his athletic skill sets to good use in this confined mixture of aggressive Frisbee, air-hockey and indecisive gravity.  Without giving Sam or the audience a moment to breathe, he is then thrown into the next survival challenge on the light cycles.  Though we are given more than our fair share of these life or death games, it is still sad to see them go…

…Especially once looking back over the film post viewing.  These first 45 minutes or so of the film really set the bar high for all that is to follow.  The action is intense, interesting characters are introduced and written well, and the story feels promising in its simplicity as a rescue mission.  Unfortunately once this leg of the race is completed the rest of the movie plays out like a runner getting winded and cramping up after over-exerting himself early on.  The visual awe remains a constant throughout the entirety of the movie, leaving the blame for why the movie disappoints on the story.  Though the grid is an interesting world to explore in thought, as the matrix was the first time I was baffled by its explanation, thanks to the 27 year gap between this film and its predecessor everything it has to offer now seems like something we have all seen time and time again.  As the opening seems to pull from the look of Batman Begins, everything within The Grid screams “we <3 Star Wars,” from the locations, visuals, dialog, characters, story, and even bits of the wardrobe.

As upsetting as it is to feel that this film never reaches its full potential, the stunning visuals and soundtrack do make it a film worth seeing.  Heck, after sleeping on my disappointment I am more than ready to go see it again, even if it is to just gawk at the first half once more.

Final Grade: B-

TRON: Legacy returns the 80’s property to the screen with incredible visuals, a magnificent score, fantastic 3-D, inventive action, and an attempt at sci-fi world building that is ambitious and interesting but falls a bit short of being entirely clear or fascinating.

Picking up 20 or so years after the original film, Flynn had gone missing for those 20 years only to be discovered inside The Grid by his son, Sam, who accidentally stumbles into the computerized world after receiving a mysterious page.  The Grid is a computer world built by Flynn and his greatest programs to help better the real world through their research and development in their creative environment.  Sam quickly discovers The Grid is being controlled by Clu, the original program built by Flynn in his own image, and he seems hell bent on persecuting other programs in an attempt to take down the Grid’s maker himself; Flynn.

The first 35-45 minutes of this movie is great stuff as we get to see Sam rebel in the real world against his own company in an attempt to uphold his father’s vision of a technological free world and quickly fall into peril once inside The Grid.  The disc war fights are a lot of fun and allow for some inventive fight sequences that you haven’t really gotten any where else.  But it is the light cycles that will have you drooling for more.  The sequence could have been a half hour long and no one would have complained due to its awesome execution and gorgeous visuals.  I hope they make a sequel just to get more light cycle sequences.  Olivia Wilde enters the fray and is a very fun and interesting character that is enamored with Sam and his connection with Flynn but it is also at this point that the film starts hitting some speed bumps.  The flashbacks and (literal) world building is told with endless ambition and good natured ideas but the sequences rarely work at great levels and really bring the film to a near halt.  Sure there are a few action beats thrown in through the rest of the runtime but they never recapture the rhythm of the films opening act.

The film is also a bit to ambiguous at times and never seems to focus its attentions on the most interesting things in the room.  The plot is pretty thin and one wonders if they would have been better suited to put all the flashbacks in one whole sequence and added a couple more twists and turns in the narrative.  As it stands it is effective but could have been so much more.  A number of bits are a bit predictable along the way as well, but that is to be expected when you go on a classic hero’s journey; right?

A couple things you can not get upset with the film over are the insanely beautiful images Joseph Kosinski throws up there with some great 3-D to boot.  This is why 3-D is cool people and I have no doubt this will re-instill some 3-D hopes in even the coldest hearted haters.  The technical bit that stands above all other though is the fantastic score by Daft Punk.  Mashing together the styles of all the great composers working today the music pairs perfectly with the images thrown up on the screen and works wonderfully standalone on its own as well.  The only thing wrong with the score is that it sounded a little too much like Mass Effect which robbed it of its breakthrough sound and atmosphere it created.  Did I mention how awesome the light cycles were?

The acting in the film is solid through out with Bridges stealing every scene he is whether it is the young version or old.  As Clu, Bridges gets to play villain and does a great job under that digital makeup making him a many years younger.  Flynn on the other hand lets Bridges let his Dude flag fly from time to time and we all know that is a great thing.  Garrett Hedlund is strong enough and capable as the lead, Sam, and he is more than believable in the physical aspects of the role.  As mentioned above, Olivia Wilde is great when the script lets her be, playing Quorra so eager and wide eyed was an inspired choice but I just felt like she could have been a tad more Zen like Flynn.  Michael Sheen has a brief appearance here as well and he is amazing as a fast talking information dealer the will delight you every moment he is on screen.

In the end, TRON: Legacy is a worthy sequel that can be even further improved upon in future installments.  It looks and sounds incredible, has the best 3-D of the year, and creates an original and interesting enough world out of the original TRON to please fans and newcomers alike; just don’t expect it to be entirely clear all the time.  TRON: Legacy demands to be seen on the biggest and loudest screen possible so if you are going to check it out don’t skip out on the big screen presentation.

TRON: Legacy is a B

Tim Burton’s latest collaboration with Johnny Depp is a gigantic, uninspired, and boring mess of an adaptation of the Alice in Wonderland mythology.

The story is a sequel to Disney’s previous animated version of Alice in Wonderland and picks up some years later with Alice, now nineteen, about to be married off to the son of an old family friend that is very well to do but Alice is still haunted? By reoccurring “dreams” of her trip to Wonderland as a child.  When the young man proposes to her in front of a giant crowd at a prearranged engagement party, Alice gets cold feat and runs off into the garden, chasing the white rabbit, and down into a rabbit hole and back into the world of Wonderland.  The look of the place has changed significantly and we discover from a few familiar faces that there is a long standing search for Alice and they aren’t quite sure if this Alice is the real one.  The prophecy is that Alice will return to Wonderland to rid it of the tyrant Red Queen and restore peace to the once jovial nation.

Now, I have a lot of problems with this film, but first and foremost I just didn’t find it at all that engaging or entertaining.  When the film isn’t seemingly just walking down memory lane of Wonderland, and it does a lot of this for the first hour, the story they try to concoct is so unoriginal and uninspired it just never grabs you.  The plot also has countless gapping holes in it, just ignores logic, and makes no sense on a number of occasions.  From the desperate attempt to give the Mad Hater some depth to his character, the complete surface depth of the evil characters, the use of CGI for Crispin Glover’s body, and the fact that nobody in Wonderland seems to like the Red Queen yet she is some how in power, these are just the tipping point of problems I have without spoiling things.

Possibly my biggest issue with the film is Alice’s demeanor and logic on her being in Wonderland.  She is convinced this experience is a dream, even though her old method of waking up from one doesn’t work.  Also, she doesn’t seem to remember or recognize Wonderland, how is this possible?  It doesn’t look all that different and she has previously told us that she is still having “dreams” about her first trip to Wonderland so why is everything so foreign to her?  It takes 95% of the movie to unfold before she starts to finally come to this realization and I don’t know if she ever acknowledges that she really had been here before, but more or less just bought into the laid out prophecy.

Burton given this endless world of imagination brings next to nothing new to table and the film is creatively dry if you ask me.  The moments that work in the film are re-hashes of the animated film, Cheshire Cat and the Blue Caterpillar are a pair of the very few highlights, and I just didn’t find the world incredibly rich or wondrous.  Also of note, the use of 3-D is just as uninspired and pointless and not necessary for the viewing enjoyment of the picture.  Avatar has spoiled us and I think a lot of the 3-D pictures this year will come across as a disappointment in that element as most directors are still trying to figure out how to use the medium.  The CGI in the picture, especially for one that cost two hundred million dollars, was also not that impressive stylistically or consistently.  There are a number of shots in the picture that do look gangbusters, don’t get me wrong, but for every winner there are two shots that look a little too eh.  Danny Elfman’s score is even an uninspired and unnoticeable element to the film.

The acting work in the film is also nothing to write home about and none of the on screen actors do anything special for the entirety of the picture.  Helena Bonham Carter is the highlight as the Red Queen but her part gets stale and repetitive in a hurry.  Johnny Depp’s interpretation of the Mad Hatter is bad weird and never really worked for me as he tried to give him a dark side, or something, on the inside.  The kookiness of the character never charms or is all that funny and it is probably one of the worst turns of the gifted actor’s careers.  Mia Wasikowska stars as Alice and she is unfortunately really flat and has no pep what so ever in the picture.  She dully delivers her lines and doesn’t have the cheery aloofness Alice has in the animated classic, Wasikowska does come a bit alive in the third act.  Anne Hathaway needs to put her hands down, Crispin Glover does alright and kind of weird work, but most of the voice actors do solid jobs in their roles.  Stephen Fry as the Cheshire Cat and Alan Rickman as Blue Caterpillar are the highlights of the voice actors, and the voice casting was one of the few things Burton got right.

In the end, Alice in Wonderland is nothing but a big mess.  Where the original film was a crazy and tripped out adventure through this mysterious and wondrous world, Burton and company try and give this iteration a plot that is stale, uninspired, and unoriginal that leaves us scratching our heads.  Beyond being unoriginal the film doesn’t really flow very well, idling with nothing much happening for the majority of the picture, and then tries to patch together a plot that makes no sense with gaping plot holes to get us to the finale.  The acting is weak, the direction uninspired, effects that are dull, and 3D that is pointless and misused there is nothing to really recommend about this picture.  A front runner for biggest flop of the year due to the talent involved, there are at least a couple characters and scenes worth checking out but this is a rental at best and the worst Burton and Depp film to date by a wide margin.

Alice and Wonderland is a F

The Twilight Saga returns with a new director, a new set of monsters, and a New Moon, but the film feels rather rehashed and far to similar to previous film instead this time it is girl meets wolf; compare to girl meets vampire.
Everything starts off alright, in fact it was making me feel quite positive about everything unfolding. Chris Weitz’s direction is far stronger and more confident than Twilight’s Hardwicke, with the camera doing far more interesting things. The focus seems to be solely on Bella, her father, and Edward and the Cullen’s as it should be and pushing all the unnecessary characters to the background. The actors seem to be doing better; everything seems to be going in the right direction and then the Cullen’s leave. The most, and almost only, interesting thing about these films is taken away for the majority of the film and only return in the final few scenes to save the film from being a fairly bad experience.
The story mirrors Bella’s path in the first film with a weird killer in the woods, a budding romance with a boy with a secret, and a secret group of creatures living secretly right under her town’s nose. The new boy is Jacob, Bella’s old friend from her childhood who lives on the local reservation as he is a Native American. A bit younger than Bella, he has always kind of had a thing for Bella, and now with Edward out of the picture, he makes his move. Bella and Jacob slowly bond, but her desire for Edward can’t fade as they become closer friends and his secret is revealed. While the two have chemistry, we have seen this song and dance before in the previous film. Plus, all of the things Bella does to cut her adrenaline going to “see” Edward gets a bit ridiculous and never lets us really buy into the whole love triangle as Bella really shows no signs of leaving Team Edward.
Besides the romance not really working and Bella’s bitching getting a bit to much to bare, the effects work was a real disappointment. The few set pieces in the film were pretty well crafted, it’s just the effects work was only adequate and not awesome A+ stuff. These films make so much money there is no excuse for a shotty effect shot or blue screen work in this picture and there are a number of nasty takes. The wolves look good, could look better though, but I guess the target audience of this film isn’t that worried about that; though every shot of the cliff was border line horrendous. The film also jumps around quite randomly at times and feels like we are missing huge plot points or they get glossed over with a sentence. The first film had this issue as well and as in the first film as well it stays away till the final act which all of a sudden rushes forward and seems a bit too convenient.
But, there were some things that worked in the film. Everything with Edward, vampires, and the Cullen’s was very good and the best part of the film. The dynamic of Bella and Edward arguing over turning her is also a nice little thread, but the most promising element of this film is the introduction of the Volturi family in Italy who are the sort of deciders of the Vampire race. Michael Sheen and Dakota Fanning will provide some solid actors for their future plots and they are as interesting and engaging as Edward, Alice, and Carlisle Cullen. Looking forward to more of them and the high point of the series so far is the encounter with the Volturi.
In the end, New Moon is sadly neither a step up or down for the series but continues to serve as a sampling of intriguing ideas and characters that they can’t flesh out into a fully engaging story. I don’t know how the wolf/vampire dynamic will play out in the last two films, as the wolves seem to be almost useless now even with the half assed attempt to keep the threat alive in the final scene. Though, if they can keep the dynamic alive, lets hope they make it interesting and compelling and same for the rest of the story, focus on the Cullen’s and Volturi and this series good eventually become a good franchise instead of an average one.
Twilight Saga: New Moon is a C+

The prequel and third film of the Underworld franchise is a fairly straight forward tale that is executed well and will please any fan of the series as it settles in as the second best film in the trilogy.
Viktor (Bill Nighy) is the leader of a vampire clan somewhere in Europe and they survive by being protected and create wealth through the work of their slaves which are a breed of werewolves called Lycans. The idea for these protectors came from a Lycan that was born a human, Lucian (Michael Sheen), making him the first Lycan that could switch between forms and Viktor, seeing how valuable this kind can be, “bred” them to protect and mine for silver for his clan’s well being; he also allowed Lucian to take on a more free role, albeit a collar keeping him from turning, in the coven home of the vampires. Unknown to Viktor, Lucian’s freedom allowed him to form a relationship with Viktor’s daughter Sonya. When Lucian begins to act out in defense of Sonya, and removes his collar to defend her, leading to his banishment to the level as the rest of the Lycan slaves under control of Viktor and his fellow vampires. Lucian’s imprisonment leads him to see the light of being an enslaved race and he rallies his kind and begins to plant the seeds for a potential breakout of the grips of Viktor’s control.
The film is a solidly constructed and paced piece of genre cinema, and there is a whole lot to be upset with. The film is fairly straight forward though and has little twists in turn for the viewer. But the films production values are solid all around for the most part though. The director, Patrick Tatopoulos, does a nice job of making some decent action and always keeping the film moving forward. The characters might come across a little one dimensional, but it keeps things quick with plenty of action, which is what we are looking for out of a picture like this. I will say, they over edited the crap out of this movie with way to many cuts poor action cinematography, it was really hard to tell what the heck was going on from time to time. And I just don’t get why people think this kind of editing works for movies, I just don’t. The effects are solid as well throughout, with a couple of Lycan beast shots looking a little fake, but its forgivable.
The thing that hurts this film the most though, is the fact that the emotional gut punch of this film has already been told and we have seen it in the first Underworld film. And while said scenes are executed well, and the film adds a bit of a twist to it, it would have been pretty gripping stuff if it all wasn’t predetermined. Regardless, the film moves right along and is entertaining throughout, it might have just been a bit more affecting had it been more of a surprise as to what will happen. Also, the ending is a bit contrived with a character “death” who we know doesn’t die, but they act like he does.
The actors in the film all do a fine job and the fact that a couple of top actors headline the picture in Bill Nighy and Michael Sheen help keep the film quality high when it could easily have folded into being terrible with lesser talent. Nighy hams it up and plays it over the top just enough so that it doesn’t feel like too much; well most of the time. He isn’t as quite as a badass as he was in the first film though, which is a bit disappointing but he still captures Viktor well. Michael Sheen is the stand out of the picture as Lucian and he plays the charismatic leader and pairs it with the intensity of being a werewolf for a perfect blend for our films hero. It will be interesting to see how these two’s roles change when re-watching the first film once viewing this prequel. Rhona Mitra does an alright enough job as the heroine Sonya, though she is basically channeling Kate Beckinsale as Selene in both looks and emotions. The rest of the cast is ok as well, with no one really standing out for good or for bad, and the fact no one falls in the bad category is a relief for fans of the series.
In the end, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans is a solid fantasy/horror flick, and while not as good as the original it is still a good entry in the series. Though doing nothing terribly new for horror/fantasy/or story telling in general, it does everything well enough and is entertaining enough that one can’t really complain. Will this film win over new fans for the series, maybe a couple, but for existing fans it will be a solid conclusion to one of the more fun trilogies of the decade.
C-

Ron Howards latest is a nice little film about history that does a fine job of humanizing Nixon while still holding him accountable, and is full of a number good performances.
Richard M. Nixon (Frank Langella) is the only president to ever resign from office, and in doing so a nation was cheated and robbed of the man admitting the errors of his way when he was pardoned by Gerald Ford. David Frost (Michael Sheen) in the mean time was a moderately successful British television host who, while having a show fail in the U.S., was still successful in England and Australia. Frost craved a return to the American spotlight though, and a return to the New York scene which he loved. Frost devises a plan to get back to New York by hopefully scoring the first interview with President Nixon since his departure and acting like a real journalist instead of the entertainer he was perceived as. Luckily for Frost, Nixon needs money and a chance to rebuild his reputation, and Nixon and his aides see this interview with an “amateur” as an opportunity to control the situation and put a positive light back on himself and his presidency.  After a bit of negotiation, Frost gets his interview, but can only dedicate a small portion of the interview to the Watergate scandal. Regardless, Frost assembles a team of researchers and his producer to gather information and evidence in a hope to pinning the man in a corner and hopefully getting him to spill his guts for all to see; though once the interviews begin, Frost finds that Nixon is a tougher opponent then expected.
The film itself is very well made and is fast paced and never drags. Howard does a fine job of blending in humor, tension, and drama with ease while also getting the most out of an already impressive cast of actors. I will say that Frost’s arc and final push to become the reporter he should be seemed a bit quick and easy, but other then that I have no major complaints with the film. With that said though, something failed to click with me to really fall in love with this film. It has a great cast, great direction, lots of great, but for some reason the film doesn’t elevate itself to the upper echelon of films of the year for me. Another thing that kind of rubbed me the wrong way was the documentary approach to move the story along, it just seemed silly to be interviewing actors playing real people but we were in a setting where they very easily could have just used the real people. It was a weird and just made it terribly clear that we were watching a movie and I think took me out of being fully engrossed in the picture. With that said though, some of the performances really do shine and stand out.
Sam Rockwell is great as always as James Reston, a Nixon scholar of sorts, who is out to pin Nixon to the wall and make him squeal to the American public. Rockwell is a bit overzealous and rides Frost throughout the picture and is the most critical member of the Frost party. Rebecca Hall is also solid, but pales compared to her work in Vicky Cristina Barcelona this year, but she is just a supportive good looking girl on Frost’s arm essentially, and it would have been nice to see a bit more for her to do. Kevin Bacon is also great as the lapdog aide to Nixon who is a bit of an asshole. Inspired by the man who he just as easily gives hope to, Bacon conveys the feelings for those that feel Nixon got a bad rap and stands up for the man through and through. Sheen as Frost is superb; he is a charming and likeable playboy that does just great work at conveying the in over his head mentality Frost finds himself in throughout the film. Sheen also has a great comedic presence and is able to make you laugh while remaining real and believable while just as easily handling all the drama he has to handle as well. Unfortunately for Sheen, Langella does him even one better with his portrayal as Nixon. Capturing the man’s passion for government, his intensity, humor, the strain the lies have on him; Langella shows such magnificent range he is worthy of any and all the praise he is getting for his turn as the former president.
In the end, Frost/Nixon is a solid film that is easily recommended for any fan of history. It also stands up on its own as a great drama and if you don’t know the story or you know the general plot, there is plenty to discover in the film as the pulling off of this monumental interview nearly didn’t happen on a number of occasion for many varied reasons. The film properly catches that dilemma and is filled with great performances throughout, but something just quite didn’t work for me in the end to take it to that top level.
B