TRON: Legacy

When they announced a sequel to the now-classic 1982 movie TRON, I inwardly cringed. Reviving fads from the 80's is a Hollywood pastime nowadays, but really? TRON? That movie really is only remembered for its pioneering computer generated graphics, which are now comically out of date. And did it even have a plot? I can't remember much of one. So I didn't expect much. And then I saw the trailer. This new world of TRON was dark, sleek, and beautiful, and yet somehow managed to keep the same look and feel. And I decided right then that I had to see it, if only for the visuals.

At its heart, this is nothing more than a fancy 3D eye candy movie, so I almost feel foolish admitting that I liked TRON: Legacy as much as I did. But sometimes it's fun to watch pretty things on the screen, and TRON: Legacy is undeniably pretty. I rather liked the updated design of the computer world, and new disc battles and light cycle matches are exciting and suitably three-dimensional. The 3D effects are particularly suited to the computer world environment, and they subtly enhanced the movie throughout. The acting is not Oscar material, but it wasn't meant to be. It certainly helps that Jeff Bridges has become something of an icon in the past 28 years. And thanks to the minimal storyline in the original, the sequel's plot is probably more complex. Perhaps my relatively low expectations enhanced the experience.

The bottom line is that TRON: Legacy is a great movie to see in 3D, and a fitting homage to the previous generation's TRON.
∗∗∗

Spider-Man 3

I knew that the third installment of this big-budget comic adaptation was weaker than the first two movies. I intentionally didn't see it in the theater, and I only now got around to seeing the DVD. My problem with the Spider-Man movies is that I'm actually a Spider-Man fan. I had a subscription to the comic for several years when I was young, and I read the comics in the local public library for years before that. So my reluctance to watch the movie wasn't because I didn't like Spider-Man; it was because I was afraid of what the movie makers were going to do with the franchise.

Spider-Man 3 was exactly what I expected it to be. It isn't terrible, but there's a lot that I didn't like about the movie. The major problem with this movie is what I might call the Batman-ization of the Spider-Man franchise. This movie is goofier than the previous two, with more soap-opera like plot elements. It also suffers from villain fatigue -- with Spider-Man fighting an alien symbiote, Venom, the Sandman, and the New Goblin. Frankly, there is just too much going on in this movie for there to be sufficient development of any single plot.

The storyline with the alien symbiote is the most compelling part of the movie. Eddie Brock, Peter Parker's competitor at The Daily Bugle, comes into contact with the symbiote after Spider-Man rejects it. Brock becomes Venom, a bigger and nastier version of Spider-Man who is always more dangerous than Spider-Man's other enemies because he knows his true identity. The Venom character was animated quite well in the movie, but it suffered from poor casting. Topher Grace wasn't physically threatening, and he seemed more goofy than angry or vindictive. The casting of the Sandman (Thomas Haden Church), on the other hand, was quite good, and he had a few good scenes, but not enough to make the movie.

If Spider-Man 3 had just had two villains, it might have had time to develop the characters a little more. Instead, Sam and Ivan Raimi decided to also include the story of Harry Osborn becoming the New Goblin. Combine this with the soap-opera drama of Mary Jane Watson and the newly-introduced Gwen Stacy, there was just too much going on in this movie to do any one storyline justice. The movie makers may have wanted to squeeze as much into the movie as possible, in case they didn't get to make another one. But in doing so, they may have guaranteed that the franchise stays at only three movies.