TRON: Legacy (2010)

One of three images my eyes were naturally able to rest upon during the course of TRON: Legacy was its main character's face, Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges).  The other two I could register were Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) and Quorra's (Olivia Wilde) faces.  The rest were interrupted by a very fast cut to a dizzying, and unnecessarily, 3D image.  But the characters' faces were each granted enough uninterrupted screen time so I could admire their features, glowing against the muted ambiance of neon illumination.  Key light is obsolete, a practically extinct form, like the rays of the sun that its cyber-imprisoned characters so long to see.

TRON follows the father-son Flynn duo in a continued battle in cyberspace. They fight Tron and the elder Flynn's computerized uncanny, Clu, to escape the grid unscathed.  It's Jeff Bridges's face, in its current state contrasted by its smooth-featured younger incarnation taken from 1982's TRON that griped my attention at this show, however.  What is it about Jeff Bridges's face that is so calming?  His is a reassuring presence that took me by surprise.  Or maybe it was because his static shots were some of the few that didn't make me sea sick.  It's a combination of these factors, and probably also nostalgia for his decades work.  In real life Bridges's persona is known to always be pleasantly devoid of pretension; maybe I sought subconscious refuge in that to deflect from a body of visuals that I found assaultive and, overall, uninteresting.

The movie's 3D usage is not particularly compelling. All but a handful of its 3D shots neglect to convey enhanced depth to the frame, rendering the technology mostly meaningless.  A DOS-like computerized notice is typed across the screen at the beginning of the film telling us two sequences are not converted from 2D.  A cursor sits blinking dumbly at the end of the sentence, just saying.  For me, TRON's use of 3D was simply in keeping with the traditions of the original film, which was also presented in the same format.

But on another note, and anecdotally, TRON has a fantastically esoteric continuity error noted on its IMDb page regarding a computer processor type:

I suppose if there was a movie in which such an error would ever possibly be noticed though, TRON, the computer gamer's wet dream of fantasy films, is it.  Congrats to that guy who figured that one out.  You totally rule, dude, and I'm not even being sarcastic.  For a movie whose overall visuals are too disorienting for me to make meaning of, you should know, anonymous IMDb contributor who pinpointed an "i386 processor type," your marvelously sharp observation is simply off the grid.