TRON Night!

The TRON: Legacy hype machine officially starts kicking into gear now that the release date is coming up fast, and they held a special event last night across the country (maybe the world, I’m not sure) called TRON Night, where they showed off about 23 minutes of IMAX 3D footage of the film. I was lucky enough to make it out to the event last night, and I was absolutely blown away. I’ll recount some the scenes they showed. For those of you trying to remain pure in the way of spoilers, you may want to look away.

If you’ve seen the trailers you’ve seen all the shots of Sam Flynn meeting with Alan, getting the keys to his dad’s Arcade and finding the hidden office to set off the movie. The first scene they showed was a more fleshed out version of this. We come to find out that Alan has been kind of a surrogate father figure to Sam, and has been grooming him to run the company, and of course Sam wants nothing to do with this, and is more interested in riding his motorcycle around and ending up in jail. Foreshadowing!! Anyway, it was a much more fleshed out scene than I was thinking and sets up a lot for the characters. Important (or not) to note that this scene was in 2D, but the rest of the scenes that took place in the Grid were all in 3D.

The next scene was when Sam has first entered the Grid, and is met by a Recognizer, and is taken into custody as he doesn’t have his Identity Disc (here’s the part where if you haven’t seen the original, you’re going “whaaaaaat??” but my answer to that is: go see the original!). As expected, he gets assigned to the Games Grid, and we see him taken in, and he is given his suit and ID disc by a few lovely assistants, and is thrown on in to the Disc Battle arena. The arena is a LOT bigger than in the original, and it’s in this whole scene that we start to see the changes in the Grid from the last time we’ve seen it. Let me say this: Sam’s disc battle sequence is incredible. The choreography is amazing, and of course it looks beautiful, but they also keep in tact that same feeling of ‘what the hell am I supposed to be doing?’ that we got when the original Flynn first got in there. Sam starts to figure out the system and wins his battle.

Next, we got our first look at a couple of things: the light car, and Kora, Olivia Wilde’s character. Somehow Sam and a mysterious helmeted character have ended up on the lightcycle grid in their light car, and of course are being chased by a couple of lightcycles. Again...it looks absolutely gorgeous, and so smooth. No quick crazy cuts so you can’t see what’s going on. They want you to take in all that TRON-y goodness. The two escape after blasting through the wall of the grid, and end up on some rocky terrain (which the lightcar adjusts for, by popping out some sweet off-road tires), which apparently means they’re “off-grid.” Very interested to see what exactly that means. As they’re driving, the mysterious driver removes the helmet and is revealed to be Kora. She seems like a fun character, and she seems very excited that Sam is there, like it’s fulfilling a prophecy or something (hmm...).

The final scene is in a ‘safe house’ where Kora was taking Sam. It’s a completely white room, with a man dressed in white knelt in the middle within some sort of beam of light. It doesn’t need to be said that this is Flynn. They don’t really explain anything about what Flynn’s role has been during his time stuck in the Grid, but it’s clear from appearances and the way he refers to Kora as his “apprentice” that it’s probably some sort of rebellion of sorts. There’s an emotional meeting of Flynns as they haven’t seen each other since Sam was a kid, and when Sam says ‘it’s been a long time’ Flynn responds with ‘you have no idea’ which, again, raises the question of how long he’s been there.

After that final scene, we got about a minute of sizzle reel stuff that’s been seen before, including the Daft Punk cameo, and some lightcycle stuff, and one thing I hadn’t seen before...light-jets. Rad. All said, I think the event had Disney’s desired effect on me. I was excited about TRON: Legacy before, but now I’m super stoked about it. It really seems like they’re keeping respect for the original’s mythology, and not just updating for the sake of updating. They’ve definitely kept that same sense of wonder as soon as you see stuff in the Grid. I’m very curious to see the backstory of how the Grid has come to this state, for instance why everyone is wearing black instead of the original white, and why it’s always lightning now, and stuff like that. Even more than that, though, I’m just excited to see more awesome blue-light-accented awesomeness in my face. I got my midnight screening tickets on the way out, and you probably should do the same.

End of line.

It starts on a bridge...

It’s always worrisome when someone has a big breakout role then all of a sudden starts showing up everywhere. With the success of The Hangover, I’ve been real afraid that Zach Galifianakis was going to succumb to overexposure and suffer the same fate of Will Ferrell. Fortunately, contrary to what the trailers might make you think, It’s Kind of a Funny Story isn’t a wacky comedy about the antics inside a mental hospital (which is a good thing) but more a light-hearted dark comedy/drama, and Galifianakis handles this somewhat serious role very well.

This isn’t to say that Galifianakis is the main character, because he’s not, but since he’s well-known he’s been sort of the face of the movie. The main character is, in fact, played by a relatively unknown actor by the name of Keir Gilchrist. He plays the role of Craig, a 16 year old going through the stresses of being a teenager in a top tier public prep school on top of being (at least mildly) clinically depressed. Craig has been having suicidal thoughts for a little while, and decides to check himself into the psychiatric ward at a hospital. He of course thinks it will just be an in-and-out kind of operation, but then finds out that there is a mandatory minimum of 5 days in the ward. Also, apparently the teen ward is being renovated so apparently the hospital sees no problem with putting teenage kids on the adult ward along with a whole cast of characters with various...issues. Gilchrist is sort of a poor man’s Justin Long, both in looks and acting style. There were points where I thought that they may as well have just gotten Justin Long for the part, but I don’t know if he can play a 16 year old anymore. Gilchrist does a good enough job though, and really settles more into the role as the the film moves on.

One concern about a movie like this, or any sort of comedy really, that takes place in a psychiatric ward is that there is that possibility of playing up the ‘crazy’ characters for cheap laughs. Fortunately this one avoids that pitfall and actually creates real characters out of the other people on the ward. Of course they have their funny moments, but more in an earnest way rather than a ‘look at the crazies!!’ way. Zach Galifianakis’s character, Bobby, is the most fleshed out of the characters, and I said, he plays his role perfectly. Light-hearted when it calls for it, and completely straight when dealing with his issues like being able to see his daughter while struggling with constantly being in and out of therapy dealing with his depression.

There were a couple things that bothered me about the movie, though. One was that the filmmakers tried to mimic Michel Gondry’s technique of putting in flashback moments and sort of surreal scenarios that are sort of hard to explain. Examples: a rooftop scene where suddenly the sky turns into a bright painting and text reading “Greetings from (insert hospital name)”; a flashback scene with Craig as a child learning how to draw, but instead of a younger actor it’s still full-grown Gilchrist in footie pajamas; animated sequences taking you through a tour of Craig’s drawings. It’s not that they don’t fit, but I just kind of wish they would have pushed these elements a bit further so that they more obviously contrast with the core of the movie, which they do well once with an incredibly well done and very memorable music video scene with the cast singing Queen’s “Under Pressure.”

The other thing that fell a little flat for me was Craig’s friends. They’re all complete assholes. This would be fine if you got some more development into maybe why they’re assholes or at least see that they used to be awesome but they’ve kind of grown into being assholes. Note: you do get this explanation with his best friend, Aaron, but it still doesn’t quite seem enough. One of the big reasons Craig gives for his depression is the fact that he’s been obsessed with his one friend Nia (who is now dating Aaron) for ages, but you never really get a back story of maybe how that happened or how they ended up hanging out a lot and him never making a move. This makes a scene where Nia shows up at the hospital and ruins his relationship with his new love interest, Noelle (played very well by Emma Roberts) seem like not much more than her showing up to ruin his new relationship rather than the culmination of years of tension as it’s supposed to.

Despite its very minor flaws, the film successfully addresses the issue of undiagnosed clinical depression in a way that isn’t condescending nor making light of the subject. It brings up a crucial point that someone can have a very loving family and a group of close friends but still suffer. It doesn’t wrap it up in a pretty bow at the end either which is nice, with Craig still having some work to do, but making progress at getting better, rather than being cured by his adventures in the psych ward. In the end, it’s a well-meaning, well-executed film; and while I didn’t realize it was based on a book until the end credits, it made me want to go out and buy the book, which I would say means it’s a success.